


Costume Party

by SupposedToBeWriting



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Exploration/Expedition, Exploring Artefact Storage, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Set early s1, halloween party, jonmartin, magic tomfoolery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29840892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupposedToBeWriting/pseuds/SupposedToBeWriting
Summary: Mischief abounds at the Magnus Institute when a sudden accident causes everyone to transform into their Halloween costumes. Jon, Martin, Sasha, and Tim must make a treacherous journey through Artefact Storage, tricking ghosts and ghouls that really want them dead, in order to save their very literal skin. Jon realizes that the Martin he knows from work may very well just be a costume, too.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

Halloween was a strange day at the Magnus Institute. When Jon had worked in Research, he had treated this day like any other. After all, he had been one misanthrope out of a dozen and nobody looked paid too much mind when he resolutely ignored any sort of communal festivity. Frankly, he’d never worked at a place that paid much attention to Halloween, and he wasn’t going to start getting _caring._

The nature of the Magnus Institute’s studies, however, had practically begged attention for the terrible holiday. People often dressed up during the day and dispersed to various Halloween parties at night. Some departments held costume contests (if Research had any, Jon did not know and did not participate). How people could have an entire day of work and then go on to host a Halloween party most of the night, Jon couldn’t fathom.

And would never find out, because – as stated previously – Jon resolutely ignored any sort of communal festivity.

Or, rather, he _had._ This was the first Halloween since his sudden appointment Head Archivist. The boss of three other people and he had considerable influence to the workers up above. It still surprised Jon how he could simply _request_ things from the library and research and have it placed on his desk before he even got in the next morning. They even waited until Jon was gone to grumble about his demands.

Then again, why wouldn’t they? Jon was in a respectable position. He was taken seriously now. He was _professional._ And it was important that he start acting like it.

The first prickling of anxiety had started nearabouts October 15th and had steadily increased since. The issue, of course, was that Halloween was not a very respectable holiday, was it? It was hard to appear in charge and confident when you were dressed up like James Bond or a meme or a pumpkin.

Of course, if Jon continued his previous behavior and ignored it – then he was no longer a _team player,_ which had become more important since he became a boss. People never accused him of being not a team player when he was actively part of the research team, but apparently, things were different now. Elias would notice. Elias always dressed up for Halloween with that smug air of dignified amusement. Last year he’d been a vampire, with delicate white face paint and two little red holes on his neck.

(And Jon hated to admit it, because he hated admitting as much to anyone, but _god,_ did he want to impress Elias before Elias realized what a huge mistake he’d made with him. It was balancing plates that were destined to crash.)

Tim and Sasha would dress up, of course. They always did, with the same amount of cool ease they had with everything. How Jon envied them. Practically the cool kids of the Archives. Jon couldn’t imagine that Martin wouldn’t dress up. It seemed that he liked being at work without actually doing any work, and Halloween was a great excuse to be a layabout. None were holding any parties this year. Or, at least, none that Jon had been invited to, for which he was eminently grateful.

So therein lied the issue. What costume could he wear that was dignified, but also showed his support to the “archival team”? He would certainly not be caught without a costume.

(As an aside, someone had put a large bulletin board up in the main employee break area in the library with photos of all Magnus Institute employees. There were photos of him, Tim, Sasha, and Martin under bright red construction paper cardboard letters that said ‘Meet the Archival Team!’. They had clearly used Jon’s photo of when he first started and had been startled by the flash of the camera. Jon wanted to throttle whoever decided _that_ little decoration was necessary.)

Jon had considered throwing on a cape and pretending to be a vampire himself, but they had dealt with a vampire-related follow-up last week and the mocking would be relentless. That eliminated all supernatural creatures, really. Anything from popular media was out; Jon didn’t exactly watch television or film. He considered picking an obscure historical or literary figure (perhaps showing off a bit, yes) but he had enough social awareness to realize _that_ would only be met with barely-concealed mockery and questions. No no no. Jon would still insist on _work_ being done that day, thank you.

Paralyzed by indecision, October 30st had come and Jon still had no idea. The others had asked him, only to be met with an enigmatic ‘you’ll see’. He had been browsing lists of clever costume ideas for two hours at work before an idea came upon him – beautiful in its simplicity. Of course, if not carried out properly, it would come off as _quite_ dickish. Therefore, on the tube ride over on the day of the 31st, Jon imagined at least a dozen different ways of how the conversation would and could go.

The Magnus Institute had been decorated for a few weeks, to Jon’s frustration. Little cutouts and vinyls of ghosties and ghoulies painted the halls, along with a welcoming pumpkin on the front desk. Utterly _destroyed_ any sort of credibility they had managed to scrape up, frankly. Wasn’t Elias the one that went on and on about how they had to be taken seriously? And now Jon had to wait by a banner that read ‘ _Haunt_ -y _Ghoul_ -loween’ by the lift.

Not to mention that tomorrow, they’d be inundated with statements about all sorts of trite nonsense. People pretended to have fun on Halloween and tried to scare themselves in the process, but the especially stupid ones managed to _actually_ convince themselves they’d seen something supernatural. Jon had little patience for that sort of thing. In his opinion, Halloween was the last possible day you’d see something frightening. If he were a ghost, he’d hide that day due to sheer secondhand embarrassment.

The lift slid open and Jon stepped out. Someone had went ahead and decided the Archives needed an extra _something,_ clearly. The overhead lights were off. Instead, someone had placed little electric candles every few feet to light the way. Made the place look like some bureaucrat’s haunted castle. “Oh, hell,” Jon muttered to himself, stepping through the dimly lit interior. It was going to be a very long day indeed. If it weren’t for his professional integrity, he would have called out sick.

Someone had put a pumpkin by his office door, carved in the traditional style. The flickering light and the faint odor implied that the candle inside wasn’t electric. “No fire in the Archives,” Jon called out through the empty halls. His voice reverberated back to him after a moment, but no apologetic heads stuck out from their doors. He rolled his eyes and bent down, removing the top of the pumpkin. A bit of his coffee was poured in from his thermos, extinguishing the tea candle with a sizzle. Bliss.

“Aw, now you’re no fun at all, boss,” he heard from down the hallway. “You can’t make one little exception? It’s _practically_ a holy day in these parts.”

Sasha came from around the corner, with the source of the voice close behind her. Tim was holding a cardboard box that seemed mostly empty except for a length of black-and-orange tinsel that snaked out of it. Where had they found Halloween decorations? Certainly _Elias_ wouldn’t keep them around, though he supposed the old man was going soft in his age. “How early did you two get in?” Jon asked them, placing one hand on his hip.

He always hated not being the first in. When the anxiety _really_ made it impossible to sleep, Jon would come in at astonishingly early hours just to make sure of it. He didn’t want anyone accusing him of not working the hardest, after all. And Jon already imagined that some of them mocked him behind his back anyway. He had no reason to think so, other than everyone in the history of forever mocked their bosses behind their backs. Jon just wanted to be the exception to that rule so badly.

“Oh, just for an hour or so,” Sasha considered. Jon could see that she was dressed as a witch – or maybe a magician? She had a long crooked black hat on with a pointy tip. Little bats dangled from her ears, swinging this way and that. Her makeup was darker than normal with purple lips and midnight black eye shadow. Other than that, her clothing was discreet: a short black dress with a long black cape pinned around her neck. Her leggings were done in purple and black stripes. Minus the hat, and nobody would bat an eye at her appearance any day of the year. “We wanted to get everything up before work started, officially, and we’re thinking one of the custodial staff did the electric lights.”

“We’ve checked, the power’s not gone out,” Tim said helpfully. “It just _looks_ like it.”

For the life of him, Jon had no idea what Tim was meant to be. He didn’t look all that different from normal, except that Jon had never seen that coat before. Tim was wearing a sleeveless bulky vest made out of brown-and-white fur. Looked like he planned to go skiing in it, really. He had on a thin gray long-sleeved shirt underneath with no discernible pattern or picture on it, and light brown jeans more-or-less the same shade as the coat.

Of course he looked _cool,_ but Tim Stoker always looked effortlessly cool. Tim was tall, handsome, likable, friendly, sweet, and god knew he was _probably_ a good lover for people that liked that sort of thing. Jon’s emotions towards Tim had steadily improved from ‘hostile and irrational dislike’ to ‘begrudging respect’, even if he often wondered what the hell Tim was doing at the Magnus Institute. He could be one of those influencer things that people talked about.

Then again, he wondered the same thing about Sasha sometimes, with how long she’d been here. And – though he knew it made him sound cocky – _him._ If he told his thesis advisor at Oxford that he was working at the Magnus Institute of all places, she would … well, first she would Google it, and then she’s chide him on wasting his potential.

Martin was the only one who made perfect sense. He presumed any half-respected library would laugh Martin out the door. Parapsychology. This was probably the only place that’d hire him.

“What are you meant to be?” Jon asked Tim warily, because of course Tim had to _be_ something. He shifted his bag over one shoulder and took the cardboard box. “A … statement against the fur industry?”

Tim’s hand pressed against his chest in alarm. “How _dare_ you. Of course it’s fake fur. Hang on, they kept falling off. Here we go.” He rummaged in the rest of the box before pulling out a headband, shaking it off, and placing it on his head.

Ah. A large pair of furry ears. Tim spun on his heels to wiggle his hips at Jon. On the seat of his pants, Tim had glued a fuzzy bunny tail that looked rather like a clump of dyed cotton balls. “What am I now?”

“Yes, yes, yes, I see, now stop moving your body like that.” Jon didn’t wake up this morning wanting to see Tim shake his arse at him provocatively.

Sasha chuckled at the sight of Tim, before shifting the box out of Jon’s hands and onto the floor “The funny thing is that we didn’t even go together? I hadn’t even told Tim what I was going to wear, and I show up, and there he is! Perfect magician-and-rabbit combination. I was going as a witch originally, but semantics, you know?”

Jon grunted in acknowledgment. Of course they happened to come in a matching costume. Tim put his fists on his hips and puffed his chest out. “And I’m the best magician’s assistant that’s ever been. Show him your wand, Sash.” Sasha rummaged through the box and withdrew a black plastic wand. Waving it between her fingers, she tapped the edge of it on Jon’s nose. “Ta- _dah!_ I’ve changed you into … what are you meant to be, Jon?”

Jon had just been vividly reminded of his first few weeks at the Institute, where he’d first met Sasha James and immediately fallen under the influence of a powerful, puppy-love crush. Remembering the way he used to follow her around during his training period … it was enough to make him cringe, even years later. The feelings hadn’t lasted long. As he worked with Sasha more, Jon began to realize that they wouldn’t work in any sort of tangible sense. Sasha was social and creative and bubbly, traits that exhausted Jon even within an eight hour work day. And Sasha, in turn, would probably go for men that were less of a … well. Bit less of a mess. Thankfully, Jon had escaped from the chasm of romantic feeling and landed pleasantly in the meadows of office acquaintanceship with his dignity intact. He hadn’t even needed to make a fool of himself.

“I don’t think he’s dressed up,” Tim whispered from behind Sasha.

Jon stuck his chin up and placed one hand on his hip. This was what he practiced on the tube, after all. “I’m going as a skeptic,” he announced regally, voice thrumming with gravitas.

_Got it in one, Sims._

Tim and Sasha shared a glance together that Jon couldn’t quite interpret, but before he could continue, he heard the sound of the fourth member of the Archives coming off the lift. The last one in. _As per usual._

“Oh, _Martin!”_ Sasha half-cooed at the sight of him.

Tim looked genuinely delighted, moving past both of them to go and rejoin. “Oh- _ho!_ You’re looking positively _spooky,_ my friend.”

Jon turned around to look at Martin. _Oh good lord._

Had Martin gone on the tube looking like that? He was wearing dark brown trousers – fine, Jon had seen them a million times at work. On top, he had on a short-sleeved button up shirt that looked to be decorated with little dancing woodland creatures in party hats. Up above, there were six black smudges on Martin’s cheeks ( _an attempt at drawing on facial hair?_ Jon wondered) and another animal-ear headband. These ears were erect and covered in red fur that admittedly matched Martin’s hair well. The insides of the ears were pink and fuzzy.

Moreover, Martin was also quite damp. “It’s raining,” he said apologetically. His words were slightly slurred, and Jon’s _drunk-employee_ alarm went off in the back of his brain before realizing that Martin was wearing vampire teeth in his mouth.

Martin had gotten on the tube looking like that.

“A wolfman? You _dog,_ you,” Tim cooed, reaching up to pat the top of Martin’s head. Jon relaxed. Right, yes, a wolfman. Not just … a man who had gotten lost in the woods for several weeks. “This is really excellent, Martin.”

“A wolfman?” Martin seemed mystified by the very idea – and thoroughly sheepish from all the attention. All eyes were on him and his trainers were soaking wet. One of them was untied, the shoelace laying sodden on the floor.

Tim beamed. “Oh, _yeah!_ Nice touch on your arms, there. Is this all natural?”

Jon’s eyes were naturally drawn to Martin’s forearms. He realized he hadn’t ever seen them before – or maybe he just hadn’t ever paid attention? Equally as likely. They were covered in thick red hair. Jon’s eyes drifted up. Martin’s top button was undone, and he could see a few red hairs peaking out from just underneath his shirt, too. _Oh, that’s –_ Jon managed to cut that train of thought off before he thought anything like _nice_ or _handsome._ That was a dangerous path he didn’t want to tread down. _Oh, that’s Martin. Those are certainly Martin’s arms._

“Um, I – I didn’t draw anything on my forearms,” Martin whispered, reaching up to self-consciously cover his arms. His face was only a few shades lighter than his red hair. “I’m a cat. The, um. The rain smudged my whiskers off.”

Awkward silence filled the space. Tim, for one thing, was thrown thoroughly off guard. Jon supposed that he could _maybe_ see where the cat thing could come from. The ears were rather shaggy to be cat ones, though, and … well, when it came down to it, Martin looked like a fairly hairy sort of man. He didn’t _really_ want to consider Martin’s body overlong, though. The strange pastel button-up didn’t help things, though, did it? Covered with trees and raccoon and foxes and, yes, even a few wolves. No wild cats.

Jon broke the silence first. He was the boss, after all, and employee relations were one of his duties. “ _Alright,_ everyone,” he announced, turning to put his hand on the door. “Let’s get back to work.”


	2. Chapter 2

The day, to Jon’s immense delight, proceeded in relative normality. The storm that had caught Martin on the way in had steadily grown worse until he could hear thunder booming from all the way down in the Archives. It rendered statement recording impossible – which was fine. Always some organizational matters to be done, wasn’t there? Things to sort. Jon had discovered the first week that it was possible to get shoulder deep in the filing cabinets if he really worked at it. Perhaps he would work on filing the statements that were being used to prop his desk up.

Lord, Gertrude Robinson had been some sort of terror, hadn’t she? Poor woman. Why had the old woman insisted on working there so long? Did she not have anyone to come home to, anyone to take care of her in her age? At least Elias Bouchard wasn’t heartless enough to fire her, even as she let the Archives decline into disrepair.

And, thankfully, there were no more festivities to be had. Once he had heard Sasha’s delighted shriek of terror in the hall, another when Martin had accidentally kicked over one of the electric candles and swore. But other than that, Jon was allowed to be in his office most of the day without being interrupted. That was what bosses did, he thought. Usually, he would leave his office to go and stare authoritatively around the assistants’ office – but it was a holiday. For all involved.

Of course, Jon supposed that he wasn’t fortunate enough to go the entire day without seeing anyone. A little before lunch, he heard a knock on his door. “Come in!” Jon called back, sliding a stack of statements in front of him to make him seem like he was busier than he was. Unfortunately, filing was one of those tasks that _was_ a bit more difficult than it looked. And looks were very important to Jon.

The door opened, and Jon saw a mop of curly red hair with two cat ears before anything else. “Hi,” Martin greeted warmly. “Brought you a cup of tea and a treat that someone from the library made.”

Jon looked up from his seat at Martin. At some point during the day, Martin had borrowed a bit of black eyeliner and re-drawn his cat whiskers on his face. Frankly, Jon almost preferred the vague black smudges. A _cat._ He really couldn’t see it. “Um, sure,” he invited, waving his hand toward him. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.” The saucer and mug was placed on his desk. A biscuit in the shape of a ghost looked up at him. Jon turned it over and inspected it, as if expecting something more sinister than shortbread and icing.

He never really understand why Martin insisted on bringing him tea. Martin brought tea to everyone, of course, but there was a difference between bringing tea to Tim and Sasha – with whom he shared an office – and bringing tea to him. For one thing, his door was always shut and Martin had disturbed a statement recording more than once.

Of course, Jon knew that he could tell him to stop. To piss off, but in a professional way. He didn’t, because … well, the Archives was cold and a nice mug of tea was quite nice from time to time. Jon supposed that he shouldn’t scratch that particular itch. He liked it, and appreciated it, and even if it was an excuse for Martin not to actively work … Jon looked the other way.

“How is work coming along?” Jon asked, pulling a statement in front of him and opening. _Hm,_ he wanted Martin to think of him, _look at how industriously he’s working, this definitely is a man that knows what he’s doing, no doubt about that, he definitely didn’t have to Google ‘what does an archivist do’ when he got the promotion._ “Productive?”

“Ehm, sort of. Follow-ups and things are difficult on Halloween day. Loads of people think we’re calling as a prank,” Martin seemed to sheepishly admit. “And we’ve been having some power flickers. Probably good we’re running on candles out in the hallway, honestly. It’s even been affecting the phone lines.”

“Ah.” Jon had noticed those. This building was old and particularly prone to electrical failure. Any attempts to point this out to Elias had been met with little success. But, he had to seem like he was in control, didn’t he? Even of the weather. “It’s … appropriate for the season, at least.”

To his surprise (and satisfaction), Martin giggled. He had his own ghost cookie in his hand and took a polite nibble at it. Something seemed to be on his mind. Jon looked up at him. “Tim and Sasha told me you were a skeptic, that’s, ah, that’s clever.” Jon tried not to puff with pride. “And Tim and Sasha look great – I mean, of course they do. Sasha looks like she’s the host of a kid education show’s Halloween-themed episode, and Tim is – I mean, Tim. Effortlessly good-looking in whatever.”

Was he meant to be engaging in assistant gossip? Martin had a far-away look on his face. Jon had just been about to open his mouth and tell him that, well, the tea was very lovely, Martin and thank you for bringing the food down but he really had work to be doing, before Martin asked : “Do I really look like a wolfman? If anything, I thought I was _too_ obvious with the cat thing.”

Oh. Right, okay. Jon folded his fingers together and regarded Martin again. It would be easier to lie, but he didn’t think he could lie that convincingly, not here. “You don’t look very much like a cat, Martin, no. I mean, the ears alone, they’re a bit too … dog-like, one would think.”

“But I’ve got – hang on - “ Using his tongue, Martin flipped out the plastic Dracula teeth in his mouth and emphasized the points to Jon. He flipped it back in. “I’ve got the big pointy canines and all.”

Jon blinked at his assistant twice. He folded his fingers in front of him and regarded Martin with little humor. “Martin,” he said wearily, “I want you to repeat that sentence back to me slowly.”

All Martin managed to get out was an a noise of confusion before the lights flickered above their heads – and went out. An alarming sound accompanied the noise. Jon was no electrician, but he knew that a buzzing sound followed by a sharp _crack! w_ asn’t anything good. They were plunged into darkness. The only light Jon could see was the soft flickers from underneath his door. “Shit,” he grunted to himself, pushing his chair back. It scraped against the floor as Jon fumbled for his phone, before – _Christ,_ that was dead. Of course it was, and here he was without his charger.

“I think something’s blown,” Martin commented. What a genius brain this man had. One would wonder how he hadn’t been picked up for rocket science. Jon knew he was being cruel to him, but it was all internally, and surely that counted for something.

Jon felt along the edge of the desk. “Well, we ought to go and see what the damage is.” He spoke with all the confidence of a leader, but god knew if Jon even knew where the breaker box for the Magnus Institute was. Certainly someone else around here knew. Certainly it was someone’s job to know. Martin got the door and opened it, depositing them into the archival hallways.

At least the candles, operated by batteries, were still operational. They were _quite_ eerie in this light, Jon considered. Set on either side of the hall, it looked like the Archives conducted blood sacrifices down here. Still quite seasonally appropriate, he supposed. He took a step towards the assistants’ office before the candles at the far ends of the hall were snuffed out. “Wh – “ Jon huffed out, staring.

Martin managed to get out a “Jon?” before another pair of candles were sniffed out. And then other. And then, cycling over one another like a river current, the rest were blown out and Jon was standing there in the dark.

He didn’t recall getting hit anywhere. Certainly, there wasn’t any pain. But Jon felt himself fall with a grunt as if he’d been attacked, and then the rough carpet from the archival floor scratched against his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jon is such a wank of a boss


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh, thank god you’re awake,” Jon heard before he even fully opened his eyes. It was Martin’s voice, saturated with worry. He didn’t have the strange slur to his words anymore. “Hey – _easy,_ easy, don’t try to move, okay? You were out for a long time.”

He was lying on the floor. Not in the hallway anymore, he didn’t think. The lights weren’t on. A dull ache pounded at his temples. Jon was just about ready to sit up and move when he heard the kettle shriek out its loud piercing whistle, and Jon groaned and curled up on the side. Noise was not good. Everything hurt. Had he died? Had someone attacked him?

“ _Sorry!”_ He heard Martin shuffle to get up and attend to the kettle. “I just thought some tea would help, I – I didn’t think about the whistle. Sorry. You okay?”

Was his voice deeper? It _sounded_ deeper. Jon finally pushed himself up on one elbow and then his feet, balancing himself on one of the breakroom tables. “Did I fall?” He asked weakly, turning his head to look at Martin – and then he let out an indeterminate call of alarm, backing up. “ _Augh!”_

That wasn’t Martin. That was some – some _creature._ Ginger red fur sprouted from its arms, its chest, its legs, its cheeks. It had a pair of big red wolf ears resting on top of a curly puff of hair. It had a face like a human, though fur sprouted from every inch of skin. Large canines protruded from the upper lip and worried yellow eyes looked back at him.. It _looked_ like –

“It’s me,” Martin announced, placing both his hands up in surrender. “It’s me, I _promise_ it’s me, Jon, it’s okay.”

For an absurd second, Jon thought of the absurd fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood, of the wolf eating the mother and then donning the clothing. Martin _was_ wearing what Jon had last seen him in, dancing woodland creatures and all. “I know this looks … concerning?” Martin tried, before shaking his head and amending to something more realistic: “Crazy.”

Definitely sounded like it was coming from Martin, and Jon figured that if a wolf _had_ eaten Martin and donned his clothing – well, he probably wouldn’t be making tea.

“Martin. You’re looking … hairy?”

Self-consciously, Martin folded one arm around his torso like _that_ would do much. Jon wondered how he’d even managed to make tea. His hands had turned into something distinctly more paw-like with blunt, black curved nails. Jon found himself staring openly, but really, who could blame him?

“Yeah. I, um. I woke up maybe half an hour ago. And I’m sorry, but I don’t really … have an explanation. I can understand that it might be, ah, shocking, but I have had … you know, a while to get used to it. Already had the breakdown, don’t worry.” Martin punctuated that with a short little ‘ _heh!’_ that convinced Jon Martin _had_ had a breakdown, but certainly didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

Jon found himself staring stupidly at Martin for the longest while, unable to form a complete sentence. Martin was a wolf-man. Nothing else mattered in the world, because not only did wolf-men exist, Martin had become one. Martin had been a regular human man with a regular human man amount of body hair and canine tooth, and now he had become a wolf man with a regular wolf man amount of body hair and canine tooth.

“I’m just going to make you some tea, okay? And maybe some – yes, okay, great, we’ve got some biscuits left. You probably ought to eat something.”

Christ, it felt like his world had just utterly ruptured. He wanted to go rock in the corner and clutch his knees to his chest, and Martin was making him tea. Martin the wolf man was making him tea. Jon shakily sat at the table and pushed his hands through his hair.

Eventually, he heard the clatter of a dish and a mug next to him. He opened his eyes to see that Martin had indeed prepared another cup of tea and given him another ghost cookie. Martin was chewing on one himself, some of the crumbs falling into the hair around his mouth.

“Thank you.” With one finger, Jon drew the saucer closer to him. “Um. Does it hurt at all?”

Martin shook his head wildly. “No, not at all. It’s just a lot of, uh, fluff to get used to, really.”

For some reason, god help him, Jon found that _funny._ He started to giggle at the table, drinking his tea, wondering if he’d hit his head so hard that he had died, actually. Martin sat down across from him. It was hard to tell Martin’s facial expressions from beneath all that hair, but he thought Martin might have been smiling.

“Oh, god. Um, where are the others?” Jon asked, wiping tears out of his eyes. They would figure out what had happened, together, perhaps – well, Jon had lost all hope of finding a perfectly logical explanation for all of this, but the alternative was curling up in the corner and hoping it would all go away. “Have they found anything?”

“I … don’t know where they are?”

“What?”

“I just woke up here, Jon, and you weren’t waking up, so – “

“ _What!_ _”_ Jon pushed himself away from the table, standing. “Your loyalty is appreciated, Martin, but they could be _dead_ somewhere. We’ve got to go find them.”

He was the head archivist, after all, and assistant safety was one of his priorities. Now, granted, up until now being an archival assistant had been one of the safest positions available, but that didn’t change things, did it?

Martin looked rather abashed. “I just didn’t want you to get hurt just laying there, and – I figured they had each other, if something happened. The electricity’s still out.”

Jon realized that that had come off as a bit of a criticism. Hell. He rubbed his hand along the side of his chin and shook his head. “There’s no point in slinging blame around. Let’s just get going, alright? Make sure nothing’s befallen them.”

“Nothing – nothing’s happened to _you,_ right?”

That was actually a very good question. Jon certainly hadn’t grown fur and ears, he could say that much. He looked down at his body, tenderly pressed against his abdomen. “Everything seems … fine?” Granted, he wouldn’t know unless he fully disrobed, which wasn’t going to be happening in front of one of his employees.

“Right. Good, good. Glad to hear it. Maybe I just pulled the short straw,” Martin offered with a laugh, going to the door.

Outside the break room, all was still and quiet. The electric candles had turned back on. The glow they emanated was somewhat cozy, if Jon could ever feel at ease in a place like the Magnus Institute. He bent down and took one, holding it close to his chest as a sort of flashlight.

Jon couldn’t hear anything upstairs. Normally, there would be all sorts of creaks and groans from the people up above. It irritated Jon to no end, mostly because it was frequently audible in the backgrounds of statements. Now … well. Jon would’ve preferred that a thousandfold to the upstairs silence and the sound of Martin’s footfalls behind him. “Where do you think everyone went?” Jon asked, nervous. It never occurred to him how haunted the Magnus Institute looked from the outside, because … well, he _worked_ there.

“Home, probably. Right? It’s late in the afternoon and the power’s off. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Martin didn’t take a candle for himself, instead preferring to cradle his arms together. “I mean, I … should probably not take the tube looking like this. Just, you know.”

“Probably not,” Jon agreed. He put a hand on the assistants’ office door, internally begged for everyone in there to have a heartbeat, and pushed.

Martin pushed forward ahead of him. “Oh, thank god, Sasha.”

And Sasha – for which Jon couldn’t blame her for – _screamed._

“He’s fine!” Jon broke out, stepping in front of Martin. He brought his hands over to touch Martin on the shoulder and arm, as if reassuring that Martin was, indeed, not dangerous to the touch. “It’s Marrtin! It’s Martin, he’s fine!”

“It’s me! Oh, god, Sasha, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – it’s me, I promise!” Martin held his hands out to her, shaking his head. Jon privately thought that wasn’t exactly _helping,_ Martin’s new voice had a touch of growl in it.

It was only then did Jon realize Sasha was holding a rabbit.

The fact of the matter was that Jon didn’t put two and two together right away. In his defense, Sasha hadn’t changed in the slightest and the fact that she was holding a rabbit was only the _third_ most surprising thing that had happened that night. The second had been the sudden black out, of course, and the first – obviously – had been Martin. Jon knew that rabbits _existed._

The rabbit in question twisted its way out of Sasha’s hands to hop onto the floor. In that moment, Jon could’ve sworn that he saw the rabbit look _annoyed_ with all involved, and he thumped his hind leg onto the floor.

Between Jon’s frantic reassurances, Martin’s frantic apologies, and the sound of a very irritated rabbit, Sasha stopped screaming and looked between the two of them. Her face was still practically aghast with distress. Jon rubbed Martin’s shoulder again. “He’s fine, Sasha, he’s not going to hurt you. It’s _Martin,”_ he emphasized.

“Wh – wh – “ Jon was pleased that someone else had screamed when they’d seen Martin, frankly. “Why is Martin a dog?”

“We were hoping you knew the answer to that, honestly,” Martin admitted. “Me and Jon just woke up like this in the breakroom. Are you okay? Where’s Tim?”

For some reason, that question seemed to quell Sasha’s nerves entirely and replace them with someone else. A sort of calm crossed over her face -no, not calm, Jon realized. _Defensive._ “Um.” It was a full sentence and punctuation. “I’m fine.”

That was good to hear, at the very least. Jon thought they’d all be a little worse for wear, but even the pounding in his head had stopped. Martin didn’t seem hurt at all, even if Jon noticed that one of his buttons had popped off from the fur on his torso. “ _Sasha,”_ Martin started suspiciously. “Where’s Tim?”

The rabbit thumped once on the floor. Jon was not a rabbit expert, but he’d once watched an entire season of a rabbit judging competition out of curiosity. It had been, frankly, riveting. Jon had taken notes and done his own independent research and had come to the conclusion that the judge focused far too much on feeling for rabbit weight around the flanks and not enough around the spine, and therefore Millicent really should have been the winner.

Regardless. This was a French lop, quite large as rabbits went. It had large patches of tan and white fur, its ears hanging low around its face. Jon privately thought it was one of the most photogenic rabbits that he’d ever seen.

Sasha took a deep breath. “I-think-the-rabbit-is-Tim.” Another angry thump from the rabbit.

“What?” Jon’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not – “

“Jon, _please_ look at Martin and tell me that it isn’t possible Tim’s turned into a rabbit. _Please.”_ Sasha let out a sigh and reached down for the rabbit again. It went limp as she placed it on the table. “We’ve worked it out. Alright, Tim,” Sasha told the rabbit, and god, perhaps Sasha had gone mad. Perhaps Sasha had gone mad and Martin had turned into a wolf man. “One thump for yes and two thumps for no.”

One thump.

“Are you Timothy Stoker, my friend and colleague?”

One thump. The sound of the foot striking against the table almost echoed around the assistant. “Oh, _shit,”_ Martin whispered beside him, raising his hand to cover his open mouth.

At least _this_ Earth-shattering revelation was easier to understand than the other one. Still, Jon found himself a little stunned by the revelation. “Any more questions you want to ask Tim?” Sasha asked with a hint of sarcasm, raising her hand to stroke Tim’s back. Tim got himself comfortable on the table, his eyes falling to half-slits. “He’s also very soft, if anyone’s interested.”

Martin walked forward. “Hi, Tim,” he offered cajolingly, sitting down at the table. He began to engage the rabbit in conversation that Jon couldn’t hear – well, he would occasionally hear a grunt or squeak from the rabbit. Tim. Tim the rabbit. _Lord._

The connection snapped in his brain, and he looked up to meet Sasha’s eyes. “Sasha.”

“Hm?”

“Tim was dressed as a rabbit. Martin was dressed as a – “

“I was a cat,” Martin broke in, stubborn.

“Martin was dressed as a wolfman. You and I – well, I was dressed as a normal person –”

“Skeptic,” Sasha corrected, and Jon audibly scoffed.

“And you were a witch, which wouldn’t necessary … I mean, wouldn’t constitute as much of a change as Martin or Tim.”

Quiet, Sasha returned to petting Tim on the head. Martin was shyly running his hand up and down his back. They all seemed to become accustomed with the reality of their situation in silence between them. Certainly, it was a revelation – but not something that Jon knew what to do with. They still didn’t know the _why_ of the situation, and the why was the key to solve everything.

“That does explain something else, actually.” Sasha reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around her wand. She gave it a tap against the table and a shower of sparks erupted from the tip onto the table. Martin let out a noise of alarm and wrapped his hands around Tim’s body, pulling him away from it. Tim let out a noise of indignation, trying to bring his feet up to scratch at Martin’s arms. “Before you ask – no. I don’t know how to do anything else, I found that out by accident. And no, I didn’t turn Tim into a rabbit and Martin into a wolf.”

That did answer two of the questions that Jon had. “We’ve all changed into our Halloween costumes,” Martin remarked. He had finally let go of Tim, who had shuffled over to remain closer to Sasha. “ _Wow._ Christ, I mean – if I’d have known this would happen today, I would’ve chosen mine a little more strategically, you know?”

“I would have not shown up today.” Jon’s voice was grim.

“Yeah, _obviously,_ but … you know.”

“No, I would have absolutely called in sick today.” At Sasha’s agreement, Tim thumped once. Martin looked somewhat put out. “Where do we go from here? Me and Tim – well, I guess me – were trying to figure out what to do next, but … I mean, _god,”_ she continued, gesturing with her hand towards Martin. “No offense, Martin, but we can’t exactly take you outside looking like your mum was a wolf.”

Martin reached up and tugged at his ears. They didn’t seem to budge much. Jon sighed and pulled up a chair to sit between them. “Look, we don’t have any proof that there _isn’t_ anyone here,” he whispered. With Tim on the table, they made a very tidy circle. “We ought to go up and check. I mean – _Elias,_ if anybody, it’s – it’s – “

“What, just because it’s his Institute, he has to know what’s going on here? For all we know, someone dosed the tea this morning, or … the ghost biscuits?”

That was where Martin stepped in, holding his hands up. “ _Okay._ As someone who made the tea this morning – nobody dosed the tea. I mean, Jon didn’t even _drink_ it, for one thing, so – and Sasha, it was _Aggie_ upstairs who made the biscuits, and are you telling me that a sixty-five year old woman with seven cats decided to bring in LSD-laced biscuits to work?”

“I mean, frankly, Martin, do we really know _you_ wouldn’t? I don’t think any of us really know you,” Jon continued. Martin was the odd man out, so to say. Elias had asked him for his preferred assistants from Research in the same email that he’d gotten the promotion, and Jon had been so perplexed that he’d said the two names that first popped into his head. He felt like he’d been preparing for battle. Sasha was whip-smart and curious, Tim was friendly and easygoing. What else could an archival team need?

(Perhaps someone with archiving experience, certainly, but that evidently was not as important as Jon thought it might be?) “Oh my god,” Martin scoffed. “I think between us, Jon, I’m the last one to be massively into hallucinogenics. _Either way,_ if we had all taken LSD, we wouldn’t be seeing the same thing, would we?”

Martin was right, and Jon didn’t like that. “You seem to know an awful lot about LSD, Martin,” Jon accused, mostly out of sheer irritability, and Martin shot him a frustrated look. Sasha made a noise, planning to interrupt, and then closed her mouth with a sigh.

They all looked at one another for a moment before Tim thumped, twice.

“Look, Tim’s right, we shouldn’t fight,” Sasha started, running a hand over her neck. “Whatever the reason, we ought to make sure Elias isn’t … you know. Make sure he didn’t dress up as, like, a dead man or a dictator or something. You know? I don’t think any of us have seen him today. So could we just pretend to get along until this is sorted?”

Jon was perfectly happy to remain irritated for several hours, at a minimum, but … Sasha had a point there. “Right. Of course, of course. I’m … sorry, Martin. I don’t think you intoxicated any of us.”

He was getting better at seeing Martin’s facial expressions underneath the hair. Martin was smiling at him. “It’s alright,” he said quietly. “Thank you for apologizing.”

“Great! We all love each other.” Sasha clapped her hands together. “Let’s get going.” Tim had made his way over to the edge of the desk and had, awkwardly, stretched his head forward to nibble at the edge of Sasha’s cloak. “We’re not going to forget _you,_ Tim. Martin, would you mind? He’s – he’s a bit heavy to carry around all the time.”

Martin gave a chivalrous smile. “Not a problem. Come here.” He picked Tim off the desk and held him in his arms. Through a series of squeaks and grunts, Tim adjusted himself until he was something nearing comfortable. His ears twitched and the rabbit heaved a great sigh of long-suffering indignation.

They exited back into the hallway. Jon was dimly aware of Sasha still twirling her wand around this and that. _Good,_ he thought to himself, _if she finds out something that can help._ Jon found himself reverting to defense again, thinking of _strategy_ like something was going to pop out and attack them. In which case, they had him (normal and, self-esteem aside, useless in conflict), Martin (perhaps stronger, but meek as a buttercup), Sasha (thrumming with unholy magicks and no idea how to use any of them), and a rabbit. Not exactly the A-team, were they?

But they would have to make do. They took the stairs up to the main floor and cut through the library. Nobody was there, but the place didn’t look askew. It looked, instead, like the power had gone out and everyone had decided to take an early day. Only the archival team had been party to the unintended unconsciousness, it seemed. Perhaps even Elias Bouchard would be gone.

He had no reason to think as such – Elias Bouchard was not a babysitter – but he couldn’t help but feel a hint miffed. They were _unconscious_ down in the archives for at least half an hour. What if they had died? What if there had been a carbon monoxide leak? Nobody thought to _check?_

“Aw, home sweet home,” Martin cooed next to him while they walked through the stacks. “I’ve missed the library.”

Sometimes he envied Martin, who probably suffered through a maximum of five thoughts a day. There was something stiff about his posture, though, and Jon noticed in horror that it was his ears. They were not relaxed and floppy, as one would expect of fabric ears on a headband. Instead, they were pricked up and alert. Ready for danger. Tim’s nose was twitching wildly in his arms.

“Yeah, sometimes it was nice being in research. But it’s quieter in the archives, too.” They reached the stairwell that led to the upper floors, starting on them. “More relaxed. You know?”

Martin considered Sasha’s question. “It does make me feel a little more useful,” he considered. “I mean, the library is a touch overstaffed as it is, I think, there were some days where I would just – “ As if remembering that his boss was there, Martin abruptly cut himself off. “Yeah! It is more relaxed.”

They found Elias’ office after reaching the top of the stairs. The heavy wooden door was shut. Pressing down on it indicated that it was unlocked. Elias _always_ locked his door after he left for the day. It only took a few late evening shifts fir Jon to become aware of that. He looked at the others behind him, cautious, before pushing the door open.

The office didn’t seem to be put into disarray. Everything was in its place, and at first, Jon thought that nobody was there. “Maybe he went home?” Sasha echoed behind him. Martin just shook his head, and after a moment, Jon saw what he meant.

A black cat leapt onto the desk. It sat primly, its tail curling around its paws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the closest thing to catboy elias that i'm ever going to write tbh


	4. Chapter 4

“Oh my _god,”_ Martin whispered. They all huddled in the doorframe of the office, as if frightened to come in. At the very least, Jon considered, small mercies: Elias didn’t seem frightened at all. In fact, he seemed bored in the way that cats often did. He blinked his eyes wearily at them, as if he’d been disturbed from a nap underneath his desk. “Oh my _god,_ the boss is a cat. It’s okay, Tim, it’s okay.” Martin started to stroke Tim, who had begun making some rather concerned squeaking noises.

“As things go, it could’ve been worse?” Sasha had whispered that question to Martin but now stepped forward in front of them, offering Elias a small smile. “Hi, boss. So, um, some things have happened – “

Before she could continue, Elias leapt off the desk gracefully and landed on the floor. He trotted out of the office, and all three turned to follow him. “Look!” Jon called. “He’s going down the stairs, into the library!”

Elias certainly wasn’t granting them any favors. Jon would be certain that they’d lost him as soon as they hung a corner – and then they would catch sight of him again, his soft primordial pouch swinging from side to side while he trotted. It was clear that he had a destination in mind.

They followed him down. Elias didn’t stop at any of the bookshelves, but instead disappeared into the small labyrinth of hallways behind the information desk. Jon hadn’t ever been there before; those were usually reserved for proper librarians. He disappeared around a corner, intent, before walking briskly into an open door. It was the only open door in the hallway.

“Oh, that’s where we stored all the old stuff – “ Martin corrected himself. “All the old stuff that didn’t go down to the Archives.”

The room itself was packed full of junk. Rusted over filing cabinets, books soggy from water damage, stacks and stacks of paper that Jon couldn’t determine. Hell, there were probably a few statements logged in there somewhere. The entire place smelled thoroughly of mold and Jon wrinkled his nose. “This is where we found the Halloween decorations,” Sasha said beside him.

Elias made his way under crammed tables and between chair legs, before leaping up onto a desk. Jon was shocked to see a typewriter there – Christ, they never _really_ threw anything away, did they? It was strange to think it was still working. Paper had been loaded into the instrument, and Jon saw a mess of black-ink pawprints smudged and smeared all over the wooden surface of the table. “He’s left us a message?”  
  


In the typewriter, the paper read:

_hello archival team_

_there has been an unintended complication. without delving into unnecessary background details, the lightning storm has activated a certain element in artefact storage. please proceed there at once and rectify the situation. if every avenue has been exhausted, you have my permission to destroy the artefact. everything should return to normal._

_the only artefact in the institute collection that could cause this is a Victor V 1907 phonograph. It should be located towards the opposite wall of the main storage room._

_hurry. matters will be more complicated come morning._

_elias bouchard_

_head of the magnus institute_

His tail anxiously twitching back and forth, Elias sat by the typewriter and watched them all read. _He signed his name? Good lord, how much time did this cat have if he could take the time to type out his name?_ As if sensing his thoughts, Elias’ eyes narrowed. His tail flicked towards the clock on the wall, indicating that Jon and the rest of the team had been out for nearly an hour and a half. It was almost six pm.

“ _God,_ artefact storage on Halloween.” Beside him, Sasha shuddered. Jon wasn’t too pleased about the idea, though he didn’t voice it. He’d only had occasion to visit artefact storage on a small number of occasions. It had all the discomfort of a frigid abandoned warehouse as well as all the intimacies of the part of the brain that stored excruciating memories. Jon always felt no more than six years old in there, jumping at shadows and seeing faces in wood.

But – Martin echoed his next thoughts perfectly. “Not like we’ve got a choice, though, do we?” He asked.

“No. Best to get it over with, then.” Sasha and Martin turned to leave, but Jon’s eyes were on the boss. Elias returned his gaze, his tail flicking from side to side.

“Wait. Should we … you know. We probably shouldn’t leave him here either, right? Something could get him.” While Jon was of the opinion that a cat could protect himself far better than a rabbit could, certainly it would be better if Elias was in the company of someone who had opposable thumbs.

Jon’s question was answered for him. As he stepped near the desk, Elias’ ears folded flat against his head. He hissed wildly at Jon, struck out with his front paw, and fled from the room to parts unknown.

Even if Elias had been close to drawing blood, Jon couldn’t help but feel relieved nonetheless. That had felt dangerously close to a violation of professional boundaries, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to look Elias in the eye again. Might make things difficult at work, that. “Did he get you, Jon?” Martin asked kindly. “That looked close.”

“A hair short, thankfully.” Jon straightened up from the desk. “I suppose cats do have a way of fending for themselves. He’ll be fine.”

“Probably just hang out by the mousetraps.”

Even if Sasha meant them as a joke, Jon wrinkled his nose in distaste. They turned to head out from the room. At least their objective was clearer, now. “You know,” Martin chirped to Sasha, “Now I think I’m okay with going as a wolf-man for Halloween.”

“How is _that_ your current priority?”

“It’s _not._ You just have to look for the bright side of things, right? And now I didn’t show up to work wearing the same thing as my, like, seventy year old boss.”

“Probably not the same thing though, was it? I mean, you know what Elias’ costumes are like. Elegant, sleek, never a hair out of place. His cat costume was probably fit for a masquerade later in the day.” Jon joined in.

“Semantics. Don’t mind him, Martin, he went to Oxford.”

“ _Hey.”_ Granted, all of that was true, but he wasn’t all that keen on the way Sasha had said it. “I don’t mean to imply your costume wasn’t nice. It was great. I liked the, ah. The ears were good? You know, they matched your hair.”

Jon had suddenly been transported to a dozen primary school occurrences where he would be forced to go up to another student, apologize for some slight, and then give a compliment in return. Even so, he did feel genuine guilt when Martin lit up. He had been a little rude earlier, hadn’t he? “Oh, you really think so? I had them around for ages, waiting for the right opportunity.”

“It’s really just the arm hair that threw everyone off.” At Sasha’s words, Tim let out one short squeak.

“ _Argh,_ enough with the _–_ to hell with all of you, I happen to _like_ my arm hair!”

“That’s a strange thing to like, Martin,” Jon found himself teasing like they were all the best of friends, but he meant it. Stranger and stranger. Well, unusual circumstances loved company even more than misery did. “But it’s good that you’ve got a healthy self-image.”

Martin tried to scowl at all of them, but his ears – relaxed and slightly bent – gave away his actual mood.

They all walked towards artefact storage. Jon took a deep breath. He hadn’t even had time, really, to think about the absurdity of Elias’ statement. All of the artefacts in storage were junk, weren’t they? Junk with some very tragic stories attached. Then again, Jon supposed that he could no longer afford to be skeptical, not when Martin’s yellow eyes were now faintly glowing in the dark.

What a night this had been so far. Jon cleared his throat. “We ought to stick together,” he announced, trying desperately to feign some form of leadership. They needed that, didn’t they? In times of crisis, someone had to be the leader. “We don’t know might be in storage.”

“Ah, yeah, Jon?” Sasha agreed with a touch of confusion. Artefact storage’s door was made out of metal, unlike all the other wooden doors in the Archives. They actually bothered to put proper temperature and humidity controls in there (something that Jon had privately wondered about _his_ archives, because humidity could ruin paper as much as it could ruin an old spooky table, but that was probably something archivists were supposed to know already, wasn’t it?) “Weren’t exactly planning on splitting up down there. Unless you thought Tim should take lead.”

Tim squeaked, and then gave a sneeze.

“Just making sure we’re all on the same page.”

“You got it, boss.” Martin’s voice was practically triumphant. Sasha pushed the door open, and Jon had to physically stop himself from breaking the own rule he’d just set.

Artefact storage was _much,_ much larger than he remembered, and it’d taken up plenty space to begin with. But before – well, it had been a _room._ And this was not a _room._ This was like the outside, but it was … _inside._ Jon could not see a definite end to the walls, they seemed to stretch on and on until they disappeared into darkness. Overhead, the same office lights were there, but Jon would predict that one out of every three had something wrong with it: it was dim, it was flickering, or it was a different color entirely.

The floor was still concrete, but _filthier._ Certainly the storage staff didn’t just allow these oozes of various textures and colors to just _be_ there, did they? Jon raised his shoe and made a noise of disgust. _“_ God,” he muttered.

Overall, though, what really threw him off was the noise. Artefact storage sounded alive. Wood scraped across the concrete. Things bent until they cracked. Ghostly grunts and moans from around the corner. And, over everything, Jon could hear a popping, crackling melody. The tune wafted around them – Jon was reminded of old cartoons, where the scent from a pie physically encouraged and pulled the cat to it.

“That’s _Bogey Wail,”_ Sasha murmured under her breath. “It’s from … lord, the 1920s, maybe? Ancient.”

“Jazzy,” Martin whispered back.

Jon was not one to be taken in by haunted houses. Plenty of people had tried to spook him on Halloween before, knowing his general feeling towards the supernatural and macabre. They hadn’t succeeded, because if there was one thing Jon appreciated more than rationality, it was dignity.

He did not want to be in this very spooky place. “Um, maybe we ought to … call the police?” Jon suggested hopefully. “Or an electrician. Really seems like more their thing.”

“And tell them what, exactly? Honestly, I think they’re going to have more questions for Martin than anything else – and they’re going to think we’ve gone mad if we tell them our coworker turned into a rabbit.”

Even if Sasha’s point was quite fair, Jon couldn’t help but add, frustrated: “I wasn’t planning on telling them _that.”_

“It’ll be okay, Jon. We’ll keep an eye out for each other, and – oh! Tim, are you okay?” Martin cut himself off to look down at Tim. The rabbit’s mouth was open, and Jon realized with a jolt that he was _panting._ He didn’t know rabbits could pant.

“Probably overheated, Martin, you’re practically made of fur. Put him down.”

As Martin complied, it became clear that Martin hadn’t only transferred heat to the small rabbit. Tim’s fur was practically standing up on end from static electricity. The small creature glared up at Martin in exasperation and thumped twice at him. “Sorry! Sorry, you should’ve said something earlier, I didn’t think you’d be getting that hot. Do you think you can keep up with us, Tim?”

There was some consideration from point of view of the rabbit. Tim bent down, sniffed the ground, and then thumped once.

“I’ll carry you if things get too much, Tim, alright? I think I won’t be as warm as Martin.”

Listening to Sasha, Jon thought that perhaps Martin might very well become the lucky one out of all this. Artefact storage was always cold, but now, it seemed positively frigid. He stuffed his hands underneath his armpits. Frankly, Jon wouldn’t have minded staying in this safe little patch of artefact storage forever, but _Martin_ just had to turn around and look at him with such gleaming yellow eyes and his elongated teeth spread in a smile.

“Right! Onward, then, fearless leader?”


	5. Chapter 5

In the end, they opted to follow Elias’ instructions regardless – against the wall opposite the entrance. Granted, that wall was a lot farther than it had any right being, but their options were limited. Jon had taken lead, and he quietly bemoaned the nice, long days in Research. He had an office then, too, and absolutely nobody that answered to him. Certainly there was none of this … faff. No existential crises.

“Have we considered Harry Potter rules?” Martin asked politely from behind him. “I mean, maybe it’s not so much the wrist movements, but a spell that you have to say.”

“Abracadabra,” Sasha intoned. “Hocus pocus.” Thankfully, Jon didn’t hear anything behind him. “I haven’t read Harry Potter since I was a kid, do you remember any of the spells from it?”

“Only the one that makes you kill people, I think. Was _really_ into it as a kid, but, ah, y’know …” Martin trailed off, a little sadly.

“ _Yeah,_ I know. Shame, that.”

“You might want to try something in Latin?” Jon suggested. “If you really insist on it.” Sometimes, Jon was able to resist the urge to explain things. Given his nervousness and – well, yes, _fear –_ Jon was more than willing to give in. “There’s plenty of magic systems in fictions. Tabletop role playing games prefer to use the spell slot model, of course, wherein you can only use a certain amount of magic at a time – any fiction that uses _mana_ typically uses a similar model. There’s also certain models where magic is seen as inherent to the user – your _Lord of the Rings,_ your _Discworld,_ fairy tales, things like that. In those systems, the magic tends to do whatever the user wants it to do. Very, ah, symbiotic sort of system. In other models, the magic is more scientific in nature. Spells to be prepared, alchemy rules, so forth. It also includes the ‘eye for an eye’ doctrine where there’s certainly more of a _drawback_ to using that kind of magic. _Dresden Files,_ your _Narnias,_ et cetera. Of course, that completely ignores the perception of magic in literature throughout history. Reach far back enough to Roman mythology and you’ll find that magic in all forms is taken for granted. Certainly, they didn’t wave a wand around and say a spell, but is there much a difference between that and calling upon Jupiter to strike thunder down on your enemies? And, what’s more, _he does it?”_

Neither Martin nor Sasha said anything to him at first. With his back to them, Jon couldn’t imagine what they were thinking, but he was very proud of himself. Tim broke the silence by thumping twice, which caused Sasha to chuckle. “You’ve certainly read a lot, Jon,” Martin said admiringly, if a little shyly, and Jon felt his chest puff out despite himself.

Taking that as permission to continue, Jon opened his mouth – and then was struck dead as they turned to another aisle of storage.

This one seemed full of various kinds of cupboards and drawers, desks and shelves. Each one was continually open-and-closing. The scrape of wood against wood was so loud that it nearly drowned out the haunting tones of _Bogey Wail,_ which still settled like a fog over the entire room. “Hell.” They all stood at the edge of the aisle. Was this some sort of gauntlet? Jon blinked, before turning around to the others.

“I mean, it seems – like, maybe that’s just – “ Martin tried to get out, before his shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I’ve got no idea. That’s weird.”

“There’s not really any other ways around.” On either side of the aisle, Sasha waved her hand towards the large bookcases that blocked their way. “We’ve got to go through. It’ll probably be fine, right?” As if realizing her usage of ‘probably’, Sasha bit her lip. “It’s just furniture.”

“Right. Just furniture.” Jon looked down at Tim on the floor. “Do you want one of us to carry you? Some of those drawers are low to the ground.”

Tim thumped twice, staring at Jon with angry intensity. Surprisingly effective for a little patchy rabbit. Jon had to begrudgingly admit that a rabbit’s chances were probably better than a human’s, here. “Right. Do you want to go first or last, Tim? Because if we all go together, we _are_ going to step on you. Splat goes Mr. Cotton-Tail.”

“ _Jon!_ There’s no call for that.”

Tim seemed to consider the situation at hand. He stared up at Jon, and then down the aisle. A closet slammed shut particularly loudly, causing Jon to startle. He opened his mouth to offer to carry Tim again, because at least then Tim wouldn’t have to strategize in such a way, but Tim was already off.

The quick brown-and-white rabbit was sprinting down the hallway. His slender front paws would touch the ground a millisecond before his powerful back legs sent him into the air again. All seemed to be going well – Tim cleared half of the aisle – before Martin gasped beside him, seeing and understanding a half-second before Jon did.

Hands. Hands reached out of the open furniture. They were all so pale as to be almost blue, stained in several places with some identifiable black sludge. A loud groan shuddered from the closet when the hand was a few inches short of closing around the small creature. Some hands were even closer.

Tim hopped up laterally in sheer alarm, letting out a high, nasal scream. His movements became more frantic, more harried. He ran in a zig-zag pattern, hopping this way and that, desperately attempting to avoid the creatures’ grasps.

And he did. Tim cleared the aisle and then some. He was in danger of crashing directly into the old television set that marked the end. At that last moment, Tim jumped up, twisted, thumped his back feet against the screen, and landed primly on the ground. His ears were stuck straight up in the air.

“ _Tim!”_ Sasha called across the aisle. The relief in her voice was palpable. “That was _amazing!_ Are you alright?”

_Lord._ Jon could’ve sworn the rabbit was _bowing_ at the end of the aisle.

All at once, the hands slunk back into their furniture, pulling the drawers and doors shut with them. The aisle went quiet, and the music seemed to swell in retaliation. But the danger, at least right then, had passed.

If there was any benefit to what had just happened – besides, of course, Tim remaining intact – it was that Jon was no longer thinking _that can’t have just happened, that’s impossible._ His world had just gone mad, and were circumstances different, he would have been proud of himself for adapting so quickly. His knees had buckled somewhat in fear, and he realized that he was leaning partially on Martin and his soft chest.

“You okay?” Martin asked him softly, and Jon nodded his head. That was embarrassing, if quite comfortable, and he pushed himself away.

“Just a one-and-done, then?” To Jon’s alarm, Sasha had taken a few steps down the aisle. All the furniture remained shut, so far, but Jon nevertheless let out a noise of alarm. “It’s _alright,_ Jon, I’m being careful. Look.” Another few steps, and nothing. “I think we’re good, guys.”

“Um, you wait here, I’ll go next,” Martin offered, and Jon didn’t _quite_ like Martin taking charge of this situation. He was, after all, the boss. And he was not going to permit himself to go last. There was a famous motivational poster that displayed a boss at a desk, being pulled along by a dozen or so employees. The next panel would show the boss at the head of the pack, helping pull the desk along. Although it was meant to show the difference between a boss and a leader (so said the mug that Tim gifted Elias for his birthday), Jon always thought it was rather alarmingly grim. Certainly there were better ways to move a desk than treating employees like sled dogs.

Still, he was not going to be the man sitting at the desk. “No. You wait behind, Martin. I’ll go next.”

Once Sasha had made it to the end of the aisle, Jon went. He kept a brisk pace and reached the end of the aisle feeling like he’d ran a mile. Almost at once, Jon pitched over and braced his hands on his knees. “ _Christ,”_ Jon murmured, and then, a little louder: “Alright, Martin! You go on.”

“Er … “ Martin called back in a tone so nervous that Jon looked up at once in alarm.

In the middle of the aisle was a large cherry-wood armoire. The handles were made of delicate wood, carved into bunches of flowers. Jon could’ve sworn that when he’d walked by it, both doors had been shot. Now, one was cracked open. He looked over his shoulder. “Sasha, did that – “

_Creaaaaaaaaaaaaak._

As if pushed by the wind, the armoire door swung open. Jon saw the shapeless forms of coats, jackets, all perfectly still. “Martin, stay – “

“Jon, I’m going to need you not to tell me to stay still. Believe me, I am a _statue.”_

Something moved, from deep inside the armoire. Jon took a step back as he saw a shiny black wingtip shoe at the edge, before a smartly-dressed man stepped out. He had a black tie fastened securely around his neck, and he had on a pair of black leather gloves. A muffler was wrapped securely around his … face …?

Although he was more-or-less covered from the neck down, Jon could see the empty space between the muffler and his black glasses – and between his black glasses and the bottom of his bowler hat – and perhaps a centimeter of space between his gloves and his sleeve – was completely invisible. Jon could see Martin right through him. Everyone froze in their tracks.

The invisible man paused where he stood. He turned his head to look at Martin, and then turned his head to look at Jon, Sasha, and Tim. Perkily, he raised his hand to give the trio a wave. Nobody waved back.

Just as Jon started to debate whether letting go of his held breath was worth it, the invisible man broke out into a sprint. His wingtips daintily tapped against the concrete floor as he ran for them, his arms pumping at his sides.

Given the bizarre situation that he found himself in, the warbling jazz music flowing above them, and the fact that Jon’s defensive strategy only flicked between ‘freeze’ and ‘annoy them to submission’ so far – Jon didn’t feel much shame at the way he just flinched, making no move to run.

The invisible man collided with him hard, knocking Jon directly on his arse. He reacted at the last second to avoid cracking his skull open like an egg. Small mercies. “ _Gha – !”_ Jon got out, raising his arms and pressing them against the man’s shoulders. They were surprisingly solid.

“Jon!” On the other side of the aisle, he heard Martin start to run. A pair of leather gloves wrapped around his neck and started to squeeze. Jon found himself utterly unable to breathe, and he dragged his hands from the shoulders to the gloves – but his fingers just grasped at empty air where the man’s wrists ought to have been. The hands themselves were entirely immobile.

Somewhere behind Jon’s field of vision, he was aware of a flurry of movement – and then the invisible man let out a croaking grunt. “Let him go!” Sasha commanded, and the hands relaxed enough for Jon to gasp.

Sasha had gotten behind the invisible man. In her arms, she was clutching the end of the muffler wrapped around his neck. It was taut, and Sasha was pulling ever tighter. Behind her, Martin had opened the other armoire door and was bidding the woman to hurry.

Jon propped himself up on his elbows and touched one hand to his throat. God, that had _hurt._

Yanking him like he was on a leash, Sasha half-dragged the invisible man back towards the armoire. He had brought his hands up to pull desperately at his neck, but it was already drawn too taut. A few steps more, and both Sasha and Martin half-pushed, half-wrestled the invisible man back into it. Martin slammed the doors and braced them against his forearm.

At first, Jon wondered if that was _it,_ but then the banging began. The invisible man had impressive strength. Martin was jostled every time the doors slammed against his arm again. He winced in pain.

“Oh, Tim, you’re a _treasure,”_ Sasha whispered, and Jon turned to see Tim. The rabbit had found a broom somewhere nearby, and was dragging it by the bristle-end closer. She bent down, picked it up, and slid it between the armoire handles. While the invisible man continued to throw himself up against the doors, and the broom did bend somewhat, the handle was thick and sturdy and the doors didn’t open again.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Jon went back to lying on the floor. He heard the slap of Sasha and Martin sharing a high-five, and then Martin’s startled noise. “Jon! Are you alright?”

Frankly, the answer was probably no. Jon had had a very long day. Granted, he hadn’t been turned into a rabbit or a cat or a wolf-man, but he’d been thrown into this massive catastrophe and now his throat burned like strep. No, it wasn’t quite strep, was it? It was like if strep had the ability to seep through blood vessels and muscle and skin to infect the exterior of the throat, too. Either way, it was painful.

Whenever people asked (and people hadn’t asked Jon in a long while), Jon would say that he had gotten in fights before. It seemed like the sort of thing normal people did, at least once. At least, he was always surprised by the amount of people who said so. The truth of the matter was that it _really_ depended on someone’s definition of fight.

Certainly, he’d gotten beaten up before. Bullies could be cruel, and Jon had been an ominous mixture of oblivious and annoying. Hardly excused it, of course, but provided an explanation. Jon thought of those days with a strange detachment. Good lord, there had once been a time where he’d been frightened of some blustery fourteen-year-old _physically assaulting_ him when he came home from school, and he had thought that had been the way things went. How the cookie crumbled, so to speak.

Granted, nobody had ever choked him before. “Grand,” he whispered, pleased to find that his voice hadn’t been affected much. Martin was on his knees to help Jon up, but Jon waved him off. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Thank you.”

Tim was close-by, sniffing at the side of Jon’s trousers curiously. He jumped into Jon’s lap. Jon could only smile and stroke his ears back. “Yes, yes, yes, Tim, I’m fine, thank you for your concern.”

Martin’s face softened. “I’m glad you’re okay, you made the most awful noise.” Sasha had walked over from the shaking armoire to rejoin them all. “And – um, not to downplay it, Jon, I’m sure it was really very awful – but _god,_ Sasha, I think that might’ve been the most badass thing I’ve ever _seen!”_

“Oh … come on,” Sasha laughed him off, shaking her head. “It really didn’t feel like it was going to work, honestly. I didn’t even think about putting him back in until I saw you with the door!”

Jon could’ve taken a nap, really. Not because he was any sort of comfortable or relaxed, but _god,_ was he tired and sore and aching. He had just been attacked by an invisible man and frankly, whatever receptor in the brain responsible for shock was simply no longer firing. Jon let his head fall onto Martin’s shoulder. “Yes,” he agreed quietly. “Good teamwork, everyone.” His bangs had fallen in front of his eyes, and Jon thought they might as well stay there. He didn’t want to look at anything any longer. Tim was very soft.

“Thanks, boss. Here, Tim, budge off.” Sasha held out her hand to help Jon up. Rather unwillingly, Jon took it. Their task still lay ahead of them, Jon knew that, but right now – well, he was feeling equal parts embarrassed and exhausted.

Here were Sasha and Martin – even _Tim –_ who had single-handedly saved his life. And what had Jon done? Gotten choked.

Jon knew there were different reactions to emergency situations. There were people who leaped into action. There were people who helped wherever they could. And, regrettably, there would always be a certain proportion of the population who simply froze stock-still. Jon hadn’t figured himself a member of the latter, but there it was, and he felt ashamed. “We should get going. We still have to – now that we know it’s dangerous here, we have to be careful.”

“You sure you’re okay, Jon?” Sasha asked him gently. Jon looked to the side and saw that his electric candle had been knocked out of his hands, and decided against retrieving it. Artefact storage was well lit and, lord, if he had to be worrying about _attacks,_ it didn’t seem to matter. “He did knock you down. There’s no blood, looks like, but – “

“I’m fine.” Jon may have been a little brusque, but he wasn’t going to be fawned over like a child. He was embarrassed enough. “Let’s get going.”

As if to emphasize his point, Jon started off down the aisle and into the next. This one was filled with relatively safe glass displays. Even if the light above flickered, nothing jumped out at him. Tim was keeping pace, but in the reflection of the glass, Jon could see Sasha and Martin sharing a look and a few words. _Worrying_ about him, no doubt, like he was some sort of fool in over his head.

Wasn’t he, though? He reached and rubbed at his opposite arm, continuing his walk. Jon got so entrenched in his thoughts that he hardly recognized Martin striding next to him until he sneezed. Jon jumped a mile. “ _Christ,_ if you’re about to ask me if I’m alright, Martin, I swear.”

“No, no. What? No,” Martin scoffed. It was a very good impression of a man who’d just been caught out. “I was just, ah. Wondering if you’d read _The Invisible Man._ H.G. Wells, I think?”

Jon gave him a wary side-eye. “Why?”

“Well, because I think we just met him.”

The joke broke through his defenses, and Jon snickered behind his hand. For one horrifying second, he couldn’t make himself stop, and he thought he was going to just start sobbing. _Christ, pull yourself together,_ he told himself sternly, and that worked well enough. “Um. No, I haven’t, I – I have read _War of the Worlds,_ though. And I have read Plato’s _Republic,_ which _Invisible Man_ is sort of – I mean, arguably – takes some inspiration from. The legend of the Ring of Gyges. But I don’t really like reading more than one work per author if I can help it.”

“ _Really?_ Not the … not the Plato stuff, but you don’t read more than one thing per author? If I find an author I like, I try to read everything they’ve ever done.”

“It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, Martin. It happens sometimes. And there are exceptions, books in a series and so forth. But sometimes it just feels like … “Jon frowned. Certain phenomena in human culture were quite relatable, at the end of the day. Even finding one or two people that shared a specific quirk of yours since childhood felt like a treasure. Jon hadn’t ever found someone who felt similarly in this particular aspect of his, even Georgie Barker, who’d known more intimate secrets about him than anyone else in his life.

“Right. Take two books by the same author. Same writing style, same way of conducting themselves. It feels as if they’re part of one story, and then I just – get _frustrated_ at it, I suppose. I try to make connections that aren’t there, and then I get annoyed, because why is Wells going on and on about this bloke named Griffin in West Sussex when Martians have invaded Surrey? I _know_ that isn’t how it’s meant to be. But the voice and tone is so similar that it really does feel like two separate chapters in the same story. Does that make sense?”

It was clear from Martin’s face that it most certainly didn’t. “That’s kind of a neat way to think about things, though,” Martin eventually admitted, and nothing about his tone indicated he wasn’t genuine. “And it’s not like there’s a shortage of authors out there.”

“Certainly not.” They passed through the next aisle. At some point, Sasha had picked Tim up and was talking to him quietly. They were behind – not far enough for Jon to worry, but enough for Jon to feel a sense of seclusion. “How on _Earth_ are you so calm?” Jon demanded quietly. Best to come out with it, if they were sharing secrets about one another.

If Jon had to put money on it before all this, he would’ve said Martin was the _most_ likely to crack between them. He was awkward, fumbly, clumsy, inefficient. The pretty face of the Archives, _that_ was certainly for sure.

Martin’s eyebrows rose curiously, and his ears flicked. “How do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ve been changed into a wolf-man, we’re in some haunted house of horrors, and we’ve been attacked by some … creature.” Jon blinked up at him. “Christ, I think _Bogey Wail_ is engraved on the inside of my _skull._ And you seem quite chipper.”

“Oh. I, uh … “ Martin trailed off like he hadn’t really considered it before. “How should I – I mean, what’s the alternative?’

“I don’t know. Crying? I feel like one of us _really_ ought to be crying.”

“Maybe it’s your _excellent_ leadership ability that’s holding us all together,” Martin half-cooed, nudging him with his elbow, and Jon found himself laughing again. Lord. When had he started becoming such a bloody gigglebox around Martin? It was almost like they were friends. Who could imagine. “I’ve been in a few emergency situations and I guess I’m alright at them, but I think it’s just, uh – I suppose it just hasn’t hit me yet. I’m trying not to think about it. Besides, _I’m_ not the one who got choked, was I?”

_Martin_ had been in a lot of emergency situations? Jon looked up at him in surprise. He would be the first to admit that he didn’t know much about Martin, but he – in the _kindest_ way possible – didn’t look like it. Martin looked like he was born at 18, might’ve studied history or literature in university, realized that he didn’t have the temperament to teach the younger generation, and instead stayed firmly in non-teaching academia. And if Jon’s backstory was hauntingly similar, he didn’t dwell on that. “Wh – “

Before Jon could pry, Sasha spoke up from behind. “Hey, Martin! Tim wants to know if you can howl.”

Startled, Martin looked behind them. Sasha had placed Tim back on the ground so that he could hop along. She had tied her braids behind her loosely; her witch hat was held under her arm. Sasha James looked ready for a long expedition. “Er, I haven’t really tried, honestly.”

“It’s just that Tim – I mean, right, I know he’s an _actual_ rabbit now, but he makes perfect rabbit noises.”

Martin half-grimaced to himself. _Shy?_ Jon wondered, and he gave Martin a nudge with his elbow. That infectious good feeling from before seemed unwilling to leave. “Go on, Martin. Give it a shot.”

Martin seemed to hesitate for a few seconds longer, as if suddenly and deeply uncertain what to do with his hands. And then, he tilted his head back and let out a noise. Jon would be hesitant to call it a howl, because certainly that didn’t speak well of wolves. It sounded rather like an embarrassed man calling the word _awoo?_

Jon couldn’t help but burst into laughter along with Sasha in the back. Tim squeaked once – Jon was uncertain if it was a rabbity sort of laugh, before Sasha waved him off. “ _Alright,_ alright, Tim, I’ll do it. Don’t have to stop badgering me about it.”

“Sasha, I think you’re spending a little too much time with Tim,” Jon remarked. Sasha sent him a weary look.

“Don’t I know it. Okay, hang on.” And then, tilting her head back, Sasha let out a howl that any member of the canis family would be proud of. It reverberated against the closest walls of artefact storage, throwing echoes back to them. It was enough to nearly make Martin trip over himself.

“Sasha, Jesus _Christ!”_

“I can see I’m the only one among us that had an unhealthy attachment to _She Wolf_ by Shakira.” Jon didn’t stifle his noise of distaste, even though he could hardly be said to have a music taste at all. “Oi, _you._ Come on. I was a single woman, just moved to London! You need to have a playlist that makes you feel tough.” There was a thump from the floor. “See? Tim gets it.”

“I did the same _thing!”_ Martin insisted, whipping his head around to look at Sasha. “Except – the opposite direction, I think? When I first started in the library, I had this whole playlist that was just, like, so – “ He gestured with his hands. “Just _so_ sad. Very romantic, though, in the … you know, the poetic sort of way. _Especially_ when it rained against those big windows in there. _Man!”_

Jon felt like he’d landed on another planet, truly. Still, he found himself smiling and laughing along with them. It was even enough to ignore the dull ache at his throat.

They weren’t friends, really. Jon supposed that Tim and Sasha might have been; he wasn’t aware if they much saw each other outside of work. He hadn’t ever had the urge to _become_ friends with them, either. Lord, he hadn’t wanted to become one of _those_ bosses.

But this was … nice. They were good people. Relatable people in what could have been a grimly depressing situation. “I’m sorry that the Archives is tragically window-deficient for your sad daydreams, Martin,” Jon mused to him. “I’ll have a word at the next departmental head meeting.”

At the word ‘meeting’, every light in artefact storage went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever wrote a songfic in my life and I don't think this counts, but if you want to slowly lose your mind by listening to Bogey Wail (1929) on youtube, be my guest! Just know that that song is playing on a loop for this entire fic.


	6. Chapter 6

He couldn’t see a goddamn thing. Jon wasn’t sure if it was Martin or Sasha that let out a yelp of terror, but he heard Tim thrash his foot wildly against the ground before being picked up by the former. “I – hang on, I can still see,” Martin got out. Jon could see the yellow reflection of his eyes. “I can get us somewhere –“

He was interrupted by Tim’s loud squeak. “Whoa, whoa, Tim hears something.”

And, after a moment, the rest of them could hear it, too. _Bogey Wail_ was still there, seemingly more eerie in the dark, but there was also a new persistent clicking noise. It was much closer than the clicks rendered from the old phonograph.

_Click, click, clickity-click. Click, click, clickity-click._ It was coming down the aisle, now. With it, Jon could sense a strange glow the color of ice.

Something heavy and shadowy stepped on his feet and a crack of electricity shot across his face. Jon squawked once, mostly out of alarm than to any pain, causing Martin to do the same. “Damn it – sorry –”

It heard them.

The glow from the creature allowed Jon to make it out just before it rounded the corner. He saw a large black horse. Jon had to admit that he didn’t know much on horses, but he was pretty certain horses were not meant to be partially skeletal in nature. Large patches of skin were simply gone, exposing a femur there, a portion of ribcage there. It didn’t seem to bother the horse at all – nor did it bother the rider.

The rider’s outfit was cast in a blue light from the pumpkin that it held against its side. Luminescent blue smoke poured from the ghastly eyes and mouth of the carved thing, trailing onto the floor. It didn’t seem to dissipate, instead gathering in a swirling swamp around the horse’s legs.

And up, up, up – the rider had on a flipped black collar, but no head to speak of.

“Oh, fuck,” Martin swore in front of him. “Oh, _fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”_

As the headless horseman came into full view, it bid the horse to stop with a quick tug of the reins. The horse stared at them, eyes alight with the same blue smoke. It pawed at the ground once like a bull and Jon felt his stomach drop.

Tim was squeaking like mad, trying to pull himself out of Martin’s arms. Martin held on tight, and Jon saw what he was reaching for.

Sasha was in an aisle ahead of them, her dark skin put under a blue glow. She was watching the horseman’s approach with knitted eyebrows. Tim’s squeaking turned muffled as he tried to bite down on Martin’s arm.

The rider turned his torso as if gazing across at all of them, dressed in 19th century nobility. Martin’s arm stuck out to his side, pressing against Jon’s chest. Please, like Jon was going to do anything but root himself right to this spot.

The horse took a step forward. Another scratch at the ground. Another step forward. Another scratch. The rider pulled back on the horse’s reins and it reared back, letting out a glass-shattering whinny. The headless horseman leaned forward on the saddle and gave the creature’s midsection a squeeze, wordlessly urging it to trot.

To Jon’s horror, the horseman got a few feet before Sasha broke into a sprint. Her face was alight in anger. She spat out, venomous: “Would you all just _fuck off_ already!?” In the same gesture, she jabbed her wand towards open eyeholes of the pumpkin.

The pumpkin exploded so loudly that it made Jon’s ears ring. With it being their only light source, Jon could no longer see. There were a few frightening moments with no sight or sound, where Jon could only clutch onto Martin’s furry arm tightly.

And then the long rows of lights started to flick back on, one by one. They were in no rush, and it took a full minute before it reached them.

No more horseman. No more horse. And Sasha James was on the ground in the aisle, her wand a few inches away from her outstretched hand. “ _Sasha!”_ Martin gasped. They all bounded over and got on their knees beside her. Tim managed to wriggle his way against Sasha’s neck, his little pink nose twitching against it.

  
And – at once – Sasha laughed, her eyes still shut. “Tim, stop it, that _tickles.”_

“ _Oh,_ Sasha.” Jon hung his head. Christ, relief washed over him like cold water, even making him shiver. “Oh, thank god, you’re alright.”

Her eyes opened, staring up at all of them wearily. She seemed entirely unhurt. “Just – sorry, it just dazed me, that’s all.” Martin had picked up her hand and was squeezing it, like they were all surrounding Sasha on a hospital bed and not huddling near her on a filthy concrete floor. “God. Sore, I think. That’s … yeah. That’s sore.”

“How did you know it would _do_ that?”

Sasha shifted herself to look over at Martin. “I didn’t?” Wincing, she shifted to prop herself up on her elbows. “I thought I could sort of … hook the pumpkin head with the wand, at first. And then – well. Boom?”

“Boom,” Jon agreed, breathless and grinning.

That’d been close. Far too close, hadn’t it? And Jon could feel the gnawing ache of uselessness again. All he’d done was clung to Martin’s arm like some sort of frightened child – granted, Martin’s arm pressed against his chest had made it so that he couldn’t really do anything to begin with, but the point remained. He looked down at Sasha again, and saw a dark splotch on her neck. “Oh, hell, I think you may be bleeding.”

“Am I?” Sasha raised her fingers to her neck. They came away bloody. “Oh.”

“I think that might be mine, actually,” Martin admitted. He gestured towards Tim. Tim looked rather shy (as much as a rabbit could do, anyway), but there were definitely some red stains on his lower chin and whiskers. “Tim really got in there while he was trying to get away.”

“ _Tim.”_ Sasha reached over and patted the rabbit’s head. “I appreciate the effort, but _really,_ no going full Bunnicula on me.” She sat up entirely. Jon still felt cautious. That there were no signs of the headless horseman only served to make him _more_ suspicious, but they were safe for now. “Are you all alright?”

“Martin practically shielded us both with his body. Which – while very appreciated, of course – I don’t think that would’ve stopped a horse much.”

“Didn’t see you coming up with a better plan!” Martin’s words were clearly intended as a joke, of course, and Sasha laughed while she stood. They seemed to strike right into the core of doubt settled in Jon’s gut, though, and he couldn’t bring himself to smile. “Right. Tim, no hard feelings, I’ll still carry you if you want.” Tim thumped twice and started to slowly hop along.

They passed through the aisle and onto the next. Jon wasn’t sure how many of these artefacts were here originally and which only existed in this strange, stretched storage. He would occasionally consign things over here, but frankly, after they got here … it was well over his head. “What the hell is happening?” Jon grunted, scratching at his cheek. Martin looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “More than just the obvious, thank you. I hardly expected there to be … _creatures_ here, you know? It’s not as if the headless horseman wanders around storage normally.”

“Weirdly enough,” Sasha answered, “This is sort of – I mean, obviously, I’m not going to say _normal._ But there is _weird_ stuff in artefact storage. I studied historic preservation in university, that’s where Elias put me at first. I only worked there a few months. It’s _creepy,_ you know! Even when the objects are perfectly mundane, they’ve all got these tragic stories associated with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a haunted copy of _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ around somewhere. There’s a bed that’s haunted by a little ghost boy. He’ll only stop causing trouble when you give him a glass of water. And you know what Bertrand did every night? He made sure that ghost boy got his glass of water.”

“Did you ever see him?” Martin sounded curious.

“No, but … well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s so hard to tell what’s just in your mind and what’s real. And whether that distinction even matters.”

Looking behind them, Jon saw that they had crossed a considerable distance. The aisles behind them faded into shadow, even if he could not see the far wall yet. His legs had started to ache, and he could’ve done with a glass of water himself. “ _And here that booogey wail, up and down the scale, creepin’ out of every rooom …”_ Martin had started to hum.

“Martin, I really don’t think we need backup vocalizations.”

“Sorry. It’s stuck in my head.”

“Me, too,” Jon answered wearily. Christ, he never wanted to hear a jazzy retro number ever again. They traversed deeper into storage, passing by a set of rolled ornate rugs that seemed to stretch all the way to the ceiling. And then, in some areas, artefact storage bore a strong resemblance to the unwanted appliance section of a thrift shop.

“I think we’re doing okay.” Sasha’s voice was chipper. Jon was glad to see that her near-death experience hadn’t dimmed her spirits, but privately found himself even more exhausted by the sound of it. “We’re alive, nobody’s hurt, and we’re making progress, I think. Some of these things are dimly familiar. We’re not just moving in place.”

“Good to know, at least.” Jon knew that he probably ought to have more of a commanding attitude. That was what bosses did, wasn’t it? He ought to be rallying them together, and yet Jon felt like he was the most pessimistic of the group. Well, perhaps Tim beat him out just yet, but he could hardly be asked for his opinion. He attempted a weak joke. “Think this counts as a professional bonding exercise?”

“I’ll take this over mandated potlucks any day, honestly.”

Jon could’ve done with something to eat, frankly. An absurd thought came to him – inviting them all out to dinner after this was over – like they’d just sit around a table and chew on crisps and salsa after all _this_ had just happened. Like Jon didn’t want to get home and pass out on his sofa after eating cold cuts and pickles from a jar.

Maybe another day, though. Yeah. He could do that. It wouldn’t be weird, not after everything that had happened. Certainly it wouldn’t be.

“Oh – _wow!”_ Martin broke away from the group, half-jogging. Jon let out a call of alarm after him. _Martin, we’ve been attacked_ _by two supernatural creatures so far, let’s not split off from the group._ He stopped in front of a table that seemed to be filled with any number of … weapons. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chainsaw in person.”

“Is this the weapon’s gallery?” Sasha soon went after him. “Oh, god, it is! These are the real spooky things, like _proper_ murder weapons. I don’t know why Elias takes in half this stuff.”

“Is there any sort of vetting process, or are we _really_ just taking whatever people can raid from an evidence locker?”

“Hell if I know. We don’t even seek out this stuff. Elias arranges and approves all of that, and then it just goes here.”

Jon had approached the case. Indeed, underneath the glass case were knives, brass knuckles, a steel baton, a gun, and even a chainsaw. Jon wondered why that would be in there (unless he had a _grave_ misunderstanding of the world, surely more chainsaws were used for gardening than for murder) before he saw that those great dark patches on the steel bits weren’t rust at all. “Christ,” he murmured. “This is …”

“Sort of cool?”

Jon wasn’t so sure he’d say that. At first, he thought that perhaps he ought to take something. Just to defend himself, because lord knew they’d face something else before they reached the gramophone. A knife, maybe. A knife seemed safe.

Except that … well, he couldn’t _quite_ shake the feeling of unease. A strange sort of anger seemed to radiate from the weapons in the case. This seemed more primal than the Invisible Man or Headless Horseman they’d faced before. It was an absurd feeling, a _ridiculous_ feeling, but he couldn’t help but feel that if he tried to wield the knife against someone else, it would turn right around in his hand and say _“actually, I think I’d like a piece of YOU, mate!”_

“We should keep moving,” Jon announced gruffly, stuffing his hands in his pockets and moving on. Defending himself was one thing, but he couldn’t trust that. He couldn’t trust anything in storage, and frankly, his trust in the Magnus Institute at large was starting to wane.

The aisles started to thin until they vanished entirely. Instead, Jon saw that this was where they kept the bulk items, things much much too large to fit on a shelf or under a table. Certainly _these_ couldn’t be in artefact storage on any other day of the year. How the hell would they even fit a car in here? What tragic past could a _washing_ machine have? Jon found himself steadily growing more curious, only to be stopped by Sasha’s sudden inhale beside him. “Victor’s bed. We’re close.”

And there in front of them was a small twin bed. The comforter was done up in little astronauts and spaceships. One corner was turned down and the sheets beneath were rumpled. An empty glass stood on the nightstand near by.

“Victor?” Jon whispered back, to which Sasha nodded.

“I don’t know. Story says that his ghost comes back all the way from Victorian times, so – you know. We replaced the bedsheets one time.”

“Well, he doesn’t look like he’s here.” Following the trend, Martin had appropriately lowered his voice. It felt safer that way. “Let’s just try to get through.”

As they crossed the halfway point of the little clearing, Jon genuinely began to believe that they might get to the phonograph without running into any trouble. They hadn’t been lucky so far, which meant that certainly they were due for a good bit of it. It was circular, irrational thinking, but Jon had to cling to it.

“Hello?” A voice, high and innocent, drifted over the music. “Could I have a glass of water?”

All four of them froze. There had been an ethereal quality to the voice, like an echo over a vast canyon. It made it difficult to tell where, precisely, the voice had come from. “Sasha,” Jon asked slowly, “Do you know if there’s any water to be had in artefact storage?”

Sasha’s eyes were wide, but they nevertheless flicked to meet Jon’s own. “Fountain.” She gestured with her chin, and Jon saw – across the stretched floor – a water fountain, almost _funny_ in its normalcy. Jon hoped that it still worked. At least there was still an empty water glass on the nightstand. Wouldn’t take any more than a minute.

“He might just be, like – a kid?” Martin offered hopefully. “Just a kid out for a walk.”

Jon was willing to humor Martin’s optimism, but it was cut short by the sound of a low, keening noise.

Up ahead of them, casually posed by a picnic table, was a nude mannequin out of a department store. Although it had a face, it was too stiff, too _inhuman_ to startle Jon. It was faced towards them. For a moment, Jon had to wonder if _that_ noise came from it.

It hadn’t. The low noise turned into a hysterical wail, growing closer. It was accompanied by the frantic _pat-pat-pat-pat_ of stocking feet against concrete floor. A small child in pajamas sprinted down and leapt at the mannequin at full speed. Almost at once, the wail shifted into a growl as the child opened its mouth and began to –

God. Children were not meant to have that many teeth, were they? Their mouths were not meant to open that wide.

The four members of the archival team scattered in different directions. He lost track of the others at once. Jon’s primary goal was just to _escape,_ not only the child, but also the sounds of vicious tearing and teeth striking through plastic. Once escape had been successfully achieved, Jon thought it best to _hide_ at once.

There towards the corner of the clearing was a wardrobe, slightly open. Only darkness lay inside. Instinctively, Jon flinched – he hadn’t had _good_ experiences with wardrobes and the men inside after the last hour or so – before turning towards it. It was better than taking his chances with the child or hiding underneath the bed. Behind him, he heard the remnants of the mannequin strike against the ground.

He fled into the open wardrobe. At once, he hit something warm and yielding and, most certainly, _alive._

Before Jon could scream, a hand reached out and clasped around his mouth. Another reached out and caught the hand that Jon had reared back to strike the creature. _Another invisible man,_ Jon thought to himself, half-faint with fear, before a whispered voice came out of the darkness.

“Hey! Hey, it’s me. Don’t scream.”

Martin. Lord. The words processed in Jon’s brain, and he didn’t scream. The wardrobe was hardly meant to hide one man, let alone two, and Jon was awkwardly pressed in between Martin and the side of the wardrobe. Now, he could see the slight yellow of Martin’s eyes, and the occasional glint off his long teeth. “ _Martin,”_ Jon mumbled behind his hand. His knees felt weak.

“Sssh,” Martin whispered back, but he removed his hand away from Jon’s mouth and arm. Instead, his hand rested on Jon’s shoulder.

“Hello?” The voice called out again in perfectly normal tones. “Could I have a glass of water?”

Jon froze. In that moment, he couldn’t guess what was going on in Martin’s mind, because Jon found himself being pushed forward towards his assistant. One arm was around Jon’s shoulders, practically holding him against Martin’s chest. Keeping him still, Jon could only guess, or perhaps Martin was just as terrified. He heard the sound of the child walking. Not near them, right now, but that could change.

Frankly, he was glad for the physical contact, above all else. Mostly needing somewhere to put his hands, Jon raised them and balled them up in Martin’s woodland creature shirt. Hearing Martin’s breathing was a reassurance he didn’t know he needed.

“Don’t think he’s heading towards us,” Jon breathed out, barely applying any voice to his words. Martin’s heart was thudding underneath Jon’s hands.

Martin nodded back. “Good.”

If he were perfectly still, he could still hear the sound of the child walking. The slightest shift in movement, even the rustle of fabric from Martin’s shirt, was enough to disguise it. He found himself holding his breath in order to listen. Walk, walk, walk … pause. Growl. And then – a running wail as the child flung itself farther away, clearly finding its mark. Jon heard the tearing of some sort of … paper?

“Painting,” Martin whispered, tilting his head back. His muscles were as stiff as a board. “On the wall. Picture of a bear.”

Not reassuring, that. Jon shut his eyes and now tried _not_ to listen to the child savagely tearing apart the painting on the wall. The action was conducted with such ferocity that Jon couldn’t foresee a direct attack going well. The Invisible Man had been – well, a man, and the Headless Horseman had been rather easily stopped, but this Ghost Boy …

Jon wasn’t sure if he ought to hold out hope for Sasha. Not through any sort of doubt for her skills, but because they’d all scattered to the winds. For all Jon knew, she could’ve been halfway down artefact storage.

He could still see out the cracked wardrobe door. The child’s bed was there, still with the empty glass of water on the nightstand. In the back of the wall, he could even see the water fountain, and Jon realized with a lurch what had to be done. Obvious, in retrospect, but he didn’t want to consider it.

Martin’s arms tightened around his torso.

Alternatively, he could stay in here and just hope that the boy went away.

He hated to admit it, because it was foppish and sentimental and therefore useless, but he felt _safe_ in here. Jon was practically embracing Martin’s soft chest, and Martin himself was rather warm, and he would much prefer to take his chances against a ghost boy if he was near a wolf-man anyway.

“God,” Martin whispered above his head, “I _really_ don’t want children.”

“ _Krrsssh.”_ Jon managed to stifle his laugh until it came out as a wheeze. Right, yes, feeling protected was all well and good – but something had to be done. Realistically, they couldn’t wait in this wardrobe forever, could they? And … he was the boss. Everyone else had already taken risks on his behalf. Jon knew it didn’t work like this, not really, but he could not help but feel like it might be his turn. He withdrew his head from Martin’s front and looked up at him. “I’m going to get him some water.”

“Um.” Martin’s yellow eyes widened. “That’s very nice of you, I think, but –”

“Should stop this. Or at the very least, distract him long enough for us to get away.” Jon indicated over his shoulder to the open wardrobe door, and Martin’s eyes followed. He felt Martin’s fingertips dig into his skin. “A-ah, Martin, claws?”

“Right. Sorry.” His grip relaxed. “Just – it seems dangerous. Do you … “ He didn’t finish the question.

“I’ll be fine. Quick.” He extricated himself entirely from Martin’s arms, looking at it. The child had finished with the painting, and he could hear the child start to wander again. Pitter-patter of little feet. Christ, he couldn’t help but share Martin’s opinions about parenthood in that moment.

“Jon.” Martin caught him by the elbow, and Jon twisted to look at him. In the background, over the scratchy music, he heard the ghost ask for another glass of water. This time it was punctuated with a ‘please’.

Their eyes met, and Jon stared deeply into the yellow irises. Jon felt a certain electricity in their shared glance, enough to make the hairs raise on the back of his neck. Martin was concerned. Martin did not like this plan. And Martin certainly wasn’t going to stop him from doing it. A thrill passed up Jon’s spine, one that he knew he _probably_ shouldn’t be feeling in this moment, but adrenaline did all sorts of things to a person’s brain.

The child was running again. He took off at a leap and collided into something that sounded wooden. Jon recalled a rocking horse from before. It wasn’t as far away as Jon would’ve liked, but it was as far away as they were going to get.

Jon slipped off his shoes while opening the door further. He didn’t dare look around to keep an eye on the ghost. Instead, he walked carefully, on the balls of his feet. It didn’t take long for him to take the empty water glass from the nightstand. _Quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet,_ Jon told himself. He held his breath until he felt his lungs were about to burst, before taking quick little sips of air.

Behind him, Jon could hear the sound of wood splintering. Gnawing. The sound of teeth on wood activated some sort of ancient impulse in the back of his brain. _Predators at the door. Run._ But Jon couldn’t run, could he? He could only walk across the cold concrete floor, in just his stocking feet, aiming for a water fountain.

He made it.

The fountain made a terrifying _k-thunk!_ sound when Jon depressed the button, one that made Jon go entirely rigid. But the ghost boy seemed intent on his own ventures, for now, and he watched the glass full. When it was half-full, Jon released the button and turned around to go back to the bed.

Christ. There he was. He hadn’t seen him, but he was squatting on the concrete floor a little ways past the wardrobe. The child had gnawed off the head of the horse and was making quick work of it. _Eating_ it, Jon could see. The child didn’t look much like a ghost, and he could see rivulets of blood run from the child’s cheeks and chin from the splinters of it all. He didn’t seem to mind the pain. Although the horse was made of wood, the gore smeared on the child’s face made it seem as if the horse had once been flesh-and-blood itself.

God.

Step, step, step. Jon couldn’t force himself to look at the ghost any longer, and instead, his eyes wandered over to the wardrobe. It was too dark to make out many details, but he could see the flash of yellow eyes watching him. Something, at least, even if he wasn’t sure what Martin could do if Jon was the next target.

The boy had finished eating the horse. He stood up; Jon could see his pained grimace from here. His breathing quickened, Christ, he was nearly _there,_ the boy couldn’t see him now, not when he was so close. Jon placed the glass on the nightstand and, just for good measure, pulled up the sheets on the bed.

The wardrobe door opened a little further. Jon could see Martin’s outline, now, could see the way he was practically vibrating with urgency. He stepped around the bed and moved, but as soon as the boy started to turn, Jon broke into a noisy sprint.

His composure could only go so far, after all, but he was worried that he caught the boy’s attention nevertheless.

Jon didn’t think he flung himself into the wardrobe as much as he was sort of grabbed and drug in. Martin made no semblance of professionalism or detachment, his strong arms were wrapped haphazardly around him and Jon’s cheek was practically plastered against Martin’s chest. “ _Oh_ my god,” Martin was whispering to himself. “Oh my god, oh my god.”

The child was walking again, closer to the wardrobe. Jon wondered if he’d been selfish. Had he practically led the child to him and Martin? Should he have just ran for his life down the aisles, leaving Martin to his fate? He awkwardly grabbed the side of Martin’s shirt, holding his breath, and –

The child had passed by the wardrobe entirely. The child was walking to the bed.

Jon’s breath left him in a gasp. Oh, thank _god._ He could hear the bed dip down, and then the sound of noisy drinking. Jon had never been so relieved as to be able to hear the sound of someone drinking _water._ “Thank you,” the ghost said, full of cheer and innocence, and then – nothing. Jon didn’t want to turn to look, and instead, just allowed Martin to practically clutch at him in the wardrobe.

Minutes passed, Jon couldn’t say how many. It might only have been one. Either way, it was long enough for him to get his breathing under control and for his grip to loosen up around Martin. _Christ,_ that was the most insane thing he’d ever done in his life, and all he’d gotten was a glass of water.

“He’s gone. He’s gone,” Martin finally whispered, and Jon detached himself to look.

There was nobody at the bed, and it was perfectly made. The glass of water on the nightstand was empty.

They practically spilled out of the wardrobe and onto the concrete floor. Jon wasn’t sure why he was still somewhat out of breath, but he nevertheless pitched his hands onto his knees and bent forward. “Sasha?” Martin called out, before cupping his hands around his mouth. She wasn’t nearby, that was for sure, and Jon wondered if they would have to go out on a scouting expedition.

And then – farther away, from somewhere near the source of the music, he heard the response. “We’re over here!”

Oh, _good._ Jon’s shoulders sagged with relief. They both went on a light jog to go towards them. _We._ Tim, too, which was fantastic, because Jon really didn’t fancy that he would be more than a few mouthfuls for the ghost boy.

Down the aisle, Sasha was on her knees in front of a large open chest. There were a series of artefacts scattered on the floor around her – books, boxes, wires. From the look on her face, Jon knew that something hadn’t gone well. “Is it gone?”

“Yeah. Yeah, the – Jon gave the ghost a glass of water and it went away.” Jon didn’t think he liked how Martin’s explanation made it sound. It had been _scary,_ damn it, and Martin made it sound like he’d just done the ghost a favor. Still, bigger problems to be dealing with. “Where’s Tim?”

Jon made the connection a half-second before Sasha opened her mouth. “He hopped in here to hide.” She gestured to the open chest. “But it’s, a – it’s.” Perhaps figuring that it would be better to show rather than tell, Sasha threw her arm into the chest up to the elbow. Then the shoulder. Then Sasha’s entire torso was pushed into the chest, far exceeding its physical limitations, before she came back up for air. “Sort of TARDIS-y.”

“ _Very_ TARDIS-y,” Martin echoed in awe.

Shit. Jon walked over to stare inside the chest. There was nothing unusual about it from the outside. “Do you think you’ll be able to find him?”

“Yeah. Yes, sometimes, I can hear him, and I think I’m – I mean, I hope I’m close. But you two should go on ahead.”

“ _What?”_ Jon asked, staring down at the woman. She had put her arm into the chest again and withdrew a small telescope, hurling it to the side easily. “Sasha, we’re not going to just leave you here. What if something happens? What if something happens to Tim?”

Sasha shook her head. She had a determined expression on her face, again pulling out what looked to be a thick knitted blanket. “Look, I’ve thought about it, okay? And if there was anything living here, the ghost boy would’ve taken it out. We’re not in any danger. And it’s going to take time that we don’t really have to find Tim. We’re close, and I’ll be fine.” With her other hand, she groped around on the floor and then raised her wand in the air. “I’ve got Sparky in case something happens.”

Jon had to admit that the plan was fairly carefully thought out. And yet, he couldn’t help but think of that standard trope. _Don’t split up._ And here they were, splitting up. One of their members was down an infinite chest. “Sasha …” He urged, only to be cut off.

“If you two don’t get to that phonograph, nothing’s going to matter anyway.” She adjusted her head to flash them both a smile. “Besides, I trust you both.”

_Trust?_

Jon wouldn’t say that he trusted anyone in the Magnus Institute. Not because he necessarily _distrusted_ them, of course, but – _Christ_ alive, people didn’t just trust randomly. Jon didn’t live any sort of dangerous lifestyle, he had no need to trust people because he had nothing to trust people _with._ Trusting implied a level of closeness – of _intimacy_ – that he just wasn’t familiar with.

And the idea that Sasha trusted him made Jon have to admit that … well, he trusted her. And he trusted Martin. He even trusted Tim. Martin still seemed unconvinced, but Jon dipped his head once. “Okay. But – shout, if something happens. Alright?”

Sasha gave a nod and returned to chest. “You got it.”

That was that, then. Jon took a deep breath before casting a glance askance at Martin. “Right. Let’s get going, Martin. We’ve got to move.”

Martin was looking down at Sasha with big eyes in some minor state of distress. “But – “ He took a step after Jon, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Are you sure, Jon?”

Trust implied a certain level of honesty, too. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sasha has to pull a rabbit out of a hat lmao


	7. Chapter 7

“So it’s – I mean, it’s a religious show?”

Martin’s sigh was impatient. “ _No._ Just because it includes reincarnation doesn’t make it religious, Jon, it’s just a thing that the Doctor does. And I think it’s only technically reincarnation, because they still have the old memories and everything before. It’s just an evolution thing, I think. I don’t know. I never really followed the Time Lord plotlines.”

Jon hummed along in thought. He’d never been one for science fiction television, not really. “And, just so I’m following, he can reincarnate into any vaguely human-looking thing. And he just so happens to choose white Englishmen? Every time?”

Another impatient sigh. “David Tennant is _Scottish.”_

God help him, Jon had to crack a smile. “Ah, yes, excuse me. Changes everything.”

It’d been a half hour or so since they’d left Sasha. After they’d gotten past the distance where Sasha could comfortably call out and hear them, Jon had started to feel anxious. They’d fallen into casual, meaningless conversation. It certainly didn’t help that _Bogey Wail_ had risen to an almost irritating pitch, and they had to nearly shout to _one another_ to be heard. Jon had always had some sensitivity to noise, and this made him feel like ants were performing a nimble march across his skin.

Martin had a way of calming him – or perhaps, at this point, it was just distraction. Either way, as they finally approached the phonograph, Jon wasn’t quite paying attention. He walked right into Martin’s back. Christ, like walking into a furry blanket, that was.

“Oh, fuck me,” Martin whispered, and after looking ahead, Jon could understand the sentiment.

So far, they hadn’t experienced much by the way of environmental transformation. There were monsters here, of course, but the only way the landscape had changed was the impossible _stretching_ of Artefact Storage. Jon hadn’t considered that he ought to be grateful for that. Perhaps if he had been, they wouldn’t be seeing this now.

It was like they were standing at the base of a trash mountain. Piles of – generously – _junk_ were stacked against the wall of Artefact Storage, all higgledy-piggledy. While the height of the mountain wasn’t monstrous, perhaps twelve feet tall, it still loomed over the pair.

At the top of the pile was the phonograph. _Bogey Wail_ moaned and groaned above them, so close that Jon could feel the vibrations in his throat. The phonograph had tilted on its side. The great metal horn at the top was resting against … _ah._ Yes, that would explain things. Actually, that didn’t explain things at all, but it made a certain sort of logical sense.

The fuse box was open. When the phonograph had fallen, the metal horn had struck and gotten lodged against the various switches and cords there. Jon stared up at the phonograph. It seemed normal – as far as phonographs went, Jon wasn’t an expert. But then again, nearly everything in Artefact Storage seemed to thrum with some sort of supernatural energy. What was to say that the phonograph would be exempt from this?

At the base of the mountain, a sort of moat had formed. Jon instinctively flinched, but realized after a moment that it wasn’t very deep. Perhaps an inch. What was more deeply worrying was the electrical wire, danging from somewhere at the top of the mountain. The end of it had exposed copper wire and was resting deep within the pool. Jon wasn’t going to check his luck with that.

Climbing the mountain would be … _possible._ But doing things that were ‘possible’ always implied that there was a very real chance they were _impossible_ and your judgement skills just weren’t up to snuff.

God. But then again, unless they just wanted to keep Tim, Martin, and Elias (somehow, he thought Sasha might very well be fine with it) as part-animal forever … what other choice did they have? Jon stared up at the big thing in silence.

He would have to climb it, of course. While he didn’t doubt Martin’s ability … it was only right that he ought to. Martin was dealing with new claws, shifted center of gravity, _hair_ over all of his body. Not to mention that Jon really didn’t want to test the physical limitations of static electricity.

“It’s like the Matterhorn,” Martin chirped beside him. “Get it? The phonograph on top?”

“Is – “ Jon felt weary. “Because the phonograph has a horn on it?”

“Yeah.”

Jon didn’t laugh. Instead, he just stared up at it.

Jon had probably put more thought than most into how he would die, mostly during the deep melancholy ( _depression,_ of course, but melancholy sounded like something he didn’t have to go to a psychiatrist for) that afflicted him during most of his teen years. After his smoking habit and his grandmother dying from lung cancer, he presumed it would be that. His mother, allegedly, had been an undiagnosed hemophiliac – which had been part of the reason her routine surgery had went the way it had. That hadn’t been passed on to him so far.

Dying from mountain-climbing, particularly in _London,_ had never really made the list.

“I’m going to go.” Jon took a deep breath, and then shook his head at Martin’s immediate refusal. “Martin, with all respect in the world, we’re both deeply non-athletic but _I’m_ used to the relative shape and sharpness of my fingernails.”

“Do you think you can? I – _god,_ Tim goes rock-climbing all the bloody time, I wish – “

“That he wasn’t a rabbit?” Jon’s eyes never left the mountain. “Likewise.”

“We could go back and get Sasha. Sasha runs.”

“Martin, we’re not going back now. It’s a miracle that we’ve been unaccosted so far.” As if making sure that no skeleton was looming behind them, Jon turned his gaze to glance over Martin’s shoulder. The coast was clear. “It’ll be fine. Alright? It’s a pile of garbage. There’s plenty of handholds and footholds.”

Martin clearly wasn’t convinced. “Jon … “

A beat passed. Jon hated pulling this card, but it seemed like a card that had to be pulled. “Martin, I’m your boss. It’s my responsibility to keep you all safe, alright? And I’ve not done a very useful job at it so far. So. Yes, I’ll be doing it.”

“Oh, for god’s – “ Martin’s arms flung out to the sides. “Are you _kidding_ me? This isn’t some sort of - this isn’t some sort of occupational hazard, Jon. This is absolutely insane. Nobody’s going to be blaming you when we get back about your _work_ performance.”

That may very well have been true, but didn’t do anything to sway Jon’s stance. He turned towards Martin and looked up at him. Yellow eyes looked back down at him. “Fine,” he said flatly. “Then, on a personal level, I’ve been bloody useless. I’ve gotten attacked by an invisible man, nearly gored by a horse, and fetched a glass of water for a boy.”

“Useless - ?”

“The fact of the matter is that you all have been _much_ more adept at this than I have, and I – I mean, clearly you all have some … some _untapped reserves_ of bravery and fortitude that I was previously unaware of.” He blinked. “Much moreso than I. So. It’s only fair, I think, that I do this.”

Martin didn’t seem to be shocked or flattered by Jon’s assertion. Instead, he seemed utterly flabbergasted, and spluttered for a second before firing out: “This isn’t _The Weakest Link,_ Jon!”

Right, that managed to stun him.

“We’re not going to – we’re not silently judging how useful one another are, okay? We’re a team. And we’re _just_ trying to make it out of here. It doesn’t matter that Sasha saved your arse once or I saved your arse once or _whoever!_ All that matters, literally the _only_ thing that matters, is that we all make it. That’s it.”

Jon didn’t know what to say to that, at first. Martin was right, perhaps, but it felt too kind. Towards him, anyway. He had to break eye contact and look down at the ground, pursing his lips once in thought.

“And I’m sorry if you’ve been feeling like you haven’t been a good leader, or whatever, but there’s no leaders here. I mean, we all joke, really, but we’re all just trying to navigate this frankly _insane_ situation.”

Martin’s voice was intense, almost trembling with how much he _meant_ it. And Jon knew that he did. Warm feeling started to suffuse through every tissue in his body, and he wasn’t sure if he was nearing a break down.

“I mean it, Jon. You’re okay. We’re not going to dropkick you off anything. You’re our friend, not a survival expert.”

_Friend._ Lord. Jon finally looked up, almost curious. “Friend, hm?” He croaked. “Thought I was your boss.”

“Yes, well, I won’t tell HR if you don’t.”

“Of course.” He didn’t think he’d ever seen Martin so – _passionate,_ before. But there Martin was, standing in front of him, practically shouting over some early 20th century tune. Jon couldn’t help but be surprised, even after everything that had happened that night. Before then, Martin had been just … well, Martin Blackwood. Archival assistant. Rank: three of three. “You know, you’re … different, now. Practically a different man than the one I met this morning.”

“I’m – “ That took the wind out of Martin’s sails. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, that’s - I’m not really – I don’t know if anybody’s really _themselves,_ at work, are they?”

“So this is the real Martin Blackwood? And who’s the one I work with, some sort of – I don’t know, a costume?”

Jon knew they didn’t have time for this. They _really_ didn’t have time to be discussing this, but he wanted to know. Because he felt like he might as well have been transported in a different timeline entirely, with people who were much braver and much more kindhearted than him.

“I mean, yes – sort of? No. I don’t sit at home, rubbing my little hands together, planning on how I can trick you all into thinking I’m stupid.” There, splitting in between his exposed canines, Martin let out a shy laugh. “I’m not really an idiot, I promise! I just – I get _nervous_ around you, Jon. And I’m really, really good at just … going under the radar. So. Yeah. Sometimes I sort of … it’s just easier, you know, and doesn’t hurt anyone? Being the bumbling, nervous blob of the office.”

Oh. “You get nervous around me?”

“ _That’s_ what you took away from that?” Martin rolled his eyes at him. “Yes, Jon, you’re a very intimidating sort of man. You’ve got impossible standards and no patience. Don’t hold that against me later, I’m … I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Jon thought he knew why. Because really, this wasn’t a professional environment. He couldn’t in good conscience hold this against Martin. They were just two people, trying to survive, and Jon nodded. “Well, for what it’s worth – “ He cast a glance at the Matterhorn again. “I like this Martin much better.”

“Oh.” It was Martin’s turn to fall silent. Jon wasn’t looking at him, didn’t want to see the emotions passing over his face.

Whether he was _useful_ or not, they had to climb that mountain. “Could you help me find something that, ah, will prevent me from being electrocuted?”

They spent the next half hour trying to make Jon’s initial crossing across the moat as safe as possible. Eventually, they had found a long bookshelf. At least, Jon had assumed that it had once been a bookshelf shelf. God knew being here meant that it was probably some sort of improvised murder weapon or altar for a profane ritual, but it held his weight easily enough. Jon jammed it against the pile and set the other on the floor.

So long as everything remained steady, Jon didn’t think climbing the mountain itself would be a problem. The key word, however, was _if._ It was not a mountain formed by millions of years of geology in motion; it was a pile of crap that had been haphazardly thrown together by supernatural magic. Jon wasn’t sure of his chances. And, potentially electrified water aside, twelve feet was still a good way to fall when the ground was made out of concrete.

“I’ll try and catch you,” Martin offered, as if reading his mind. “If you fall.”

Jon took a deep breath and nodded. Hopefully he didn’t need to tell Martin not to stand in the water while he did it. “Right. Yes. Thanks.”

Sensing Jon’s distraction, Martin put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Hey. You got this.”

It might have been a meaningless saying. Hell, it probably was. By any measure of logic, Jon _didn’t_ have this. But Jon appreciated it nevertheless. He turned towards his friend. “Well. If something happens –”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

If something happened, then, he trusted Martin would be able to handle it. He took a deep breath. Christ, even covered with fur and teeth and yellow eyes, Martin had one of the kindest faces that he’d ever seen. He seemed so _confident_ in himself, in this, and Jon wondered if that was an act, too.

If he _was_ going to die like this, Jon wasn’t sure if he’d rather see any other face. That didn’t mean much, though. Jon didn’t exactly have people who loved him, cared about his well-being.

This wasn’t the time for a third-life crisis, evidently. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Look, if nothing else, you’ve been a remarkable source of stability through this.”

The entire world seemed to quiet around them. Jon knew that the music was still playing, of course, but it couldn’t possibly hope to get louder than the blood rushing in his ears. Was he holding his breath? He was holding his breath. Why was he holding his breath?

Perhaps because he was frightened, perhaps because of the adrenaline. “No problem,” Martin chirped back. “That’s what I’m here for.”

And then there was nothing. They just looked at one another, and Jon realized that they were having a moment. He was never exceptionally talented at identifying moments, but it was hard to ignore when this moment seemed to stretch on and on. He couldn’t break away from Martin’s eyes, feeling his heart thump, thump, thump against his ribcage. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

The kiss was sudden, and yet Jon didn’t flinch or back away. The moment Martin bent down and kissed him, Jon was overwhelmed by tender feeling. _Yes,_ his brain seemed to cry out. _Yes, this is what we’ve been wanting._ He was faintly aware of blood on his bottom lip. Martin hadn’t bit – even he wasn’t that forward, given the situation – but his canines were sharper than either of them had clearly thought. Jon pressed his fingers up against his lips to wipe the blood away. There hadn’t been any pain. Unusual.

“Oh – oh, fuck.” Martin winced. “Sorry.”

“What for – “ _The blood, idiot._ “Right, no. Um, it’s fine. I ought to, uh – “ Jon jerked a thumb awkwardly towards the mountain. “Go. If I hear another round of _Bogey Wail,_ I’m going to tear my ears off.”

“Right! Uh, good luck.” Martin flashed him a thumbs-up.

Jon turned on his heel. His face was flushed with warmth. _You’re twenty-nine,_ he begged himself. _Please conduct yourself with a little more decorum. You’re acting like a teenager whose mum is waiting on the curb._ Jon had been pleased with many changes that adulthood brought, but lord, he had apparently missed the day they were handing out sentimental confidence. Flinging himself up the mountain was going to be a welcome respite.

The shelf bent under his weight but didn’t break. Jon nevertheless walked it slowly, with his hands outstretched. He had no strategy to help with this. Christ, Jon was no gymnast, but he nevertheless made it to the other side. He stepped onto a desk that was awkwardly jutting out from the mountain. Although he had visions of the desk going tumbling down with him, it nevertheless felt sturdy underneath his hands.

He was thrilled that Martin didn’t call out words of encouragement. Instead, the man was so silent that he very well might have wandered off. He was grateful – it let Jon concentrate as he started to pull himself up. A hand on a printer there, a foot on a chair there. It was almost like each individual element of the mountain was glued in; nothing shook or trembled under his grasp. While that made things easier, Jon had to admit that he _really_ did not have the upper body strength to be doing this. Instead of pulling himself up, Jon found himself implementing a mountain goat strategy where he simply stepped up on things.

The twelve feet felt like an age, but Jon crested the top. And there, shining and glittering like a prize, was the phonograph. Jon could hear the crackle and pop of the record – before he could help himself, he yanked it from the machine and flung it like a Frisbree across the room. Somewhere, far away, he heard a crack and all went blessedly, mercifully _silent._

“Woo!” Martin shouted up. Jon looked down at him and found himself grinning triumphantly. “Nice shot!”

Now for the important part. The base of the phonograph was made of wood, and the horn looked like it was made out of brass. Surprisingly big and unwieldy. Awkwardly, Jon wrapped his arms around it and awkwardly pivoted it out of the fuse box. It felt like wiggling a loose tooth out of a mouth, honestly. But after a moment, with some ungodly screeching, Jon was sitting on top of the mountain with the phonograph in his arms.

Only one thing to be done with _this._ “Ugh!” Jon grunted, swivelling like a shotputter to throw it off the mountain. This didn’t go as far as the record, and instead splintered into a hundred pieces at the bottom. _That_ was certainly not going to get used again, Jon thought with satisfaction.

They’d done it. Genuine joy filled Jon’s core, making him lightheaded. Or … no. Something _else_ was making him lightheaded, and Jon couldn’t take a breath, and was he _choking?_ Was something happening? He looked down at Martin. Martin’s hands were at his own throat, something dawning panic entering his eyes. Was this some sort of monster attacking them? If so, what were they supposed to …

Jon’s eyes drifted shut as he slumped to the side. He felt air rush past him for only a moment, and then nothing.


	8. Chapter 8

Jon was late for work.

In his defense, it’d been an exceptionally weird morning. He’d woken up with one of the worst hangovers that he’d ever had in his life, but he couldn’t remember drinking _anything._ Christ, it wasn’t like he attended Halloween parties. If only he could remember what had happened. All that was left were splotchy, mismatched memories of the dream that he’d had.

Elias had been a cat. That had been weird. What a Halloween theme.

Normally, Jon showed up at work early in order to make a good impression. A boss had to show up early, after all. Showed that he was _passionate._ But now, half-drowned in self-pity and Gatorade, Jon took his time in the shower and getting dressed. If anyone asked – nobody was going to ask. He was the boss and he could show up at ten am if he so wished.

Still, Jon practically skittered into the Archives like a frightened animal. He had kept his head down the entire while. At least the pain medication had kicked in, but he would nevertheless be spending his morning in his office with the lights off and a thermos full of coffee. Three water bottles were in his bag, along with the greasiest breakfast sandwich he could purchase on the way here.

Jon was not _entirely_ a stranger to hangovers.

After he set up his bag in his office, though, Jon thought he might as well try and have a cover. Jon skulked down the hallway to the assistants’ office. Nobody had seen him in the hallway. Perhaps he would very well get away with this.

“Morning, boss!” Sasha said brightly after Jon opened the door. She looked up from the computer where she’d been typing. A small stack of statements rested next to her. Shedding the vestiges of Halloween completely, Sasha was dressed in earthy browns and greens. Jon caught sight of a half-empty Pedialyte bottle on her desk. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“Hm, I – yes. Spent most of the morning in my office. You know how many people we get over Halloween,” Jon bluffed with a shrug of his shoulder, trying desperately to seem casual. Story of his life, really.

Tim was in the room, too. He didn’t say a word, and also made no attempt to conceal his mood. He was lying with his head down on his desk, a box of tissues and a bag of fast food lying untouched. “Tim?” Jon advised, and received only a drawn-out moan for his troubles.

“Tim had a rough night last night. Halloween party that went a little too wild, we think,” Sasha answered on his behalf.

“Oh? Did you two go … together?” Was _that_ where Jon had went last night? For the life of him, he couldn’t recall. He remembered being in the office, and he remembered the power going out, and then that ridiculously vivid dream. Strange.

“Ah – ah, yeah, yeah. We did.” Sasha seemed almost shy in that moment, and Jon decided not to press. He would usually criticize Tim at least a little for showing up to work deeply hungover. However, the lights seemed so much _brighter_ in the assistants’ office, and he swore that God was making them buzz ten times as loudly as penance for his sins.

Jon folded his hands behind his back. “Very good,” he quipped. “Very good. And Martin is … ?”

“Um.” Sasha reached for her phone lying on the desk and frowned. “I, ah – he says there was an accident, and … yeah, his bus is running late. He’ll be here soon.”

She wasn’t looking at any sort of text notification on her phone. Lying on Martin’s behalf, then? Another thing that Jon would’ve reveled in catching people out about, but _bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz._

“Very good,” Jon replied vaguely, and escaped to the hallway.

He almost got out of it scot-free. His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the lift ding, and out stepped Martin Blackwood.

Time seemed to freeze. In that moment, Jon could only recall Martin Blackwood, wolf-man, leaning down and kissing him so _gently._ Martin Blackwood’s arms around him in a wardrobe. Martin Blackwood’s arm jutting out against his chest. Smiling, scowling, howling.

Dreams were so _deeply_ unfair. Jon held the opinion that dreams weren’t anything more than random thoughts flying around and striking random buttons. The idea that _meaning_ could be assigned was absurd. Moreover, Jon hated that idea that his body had a mechanism wherein he could hypothetically dream about having _extremely_ detailed sexual intercourse with his grandmother and he just had to accept that as a fact of life. Like now, for example. He still remembered the feeling of Martin’s lips against his own and now he had to wave and make small talk and ask Martin how his work was going.

The greeting didn’t come. They just stared at one another, wide-eyed. Martin didn’t look well – pale, sweaty, and crumpled. If Jon didn’t know about Sasha’s lying before, the reason for Martin’s lateness became immediately apparent.

Martin didn’t seem like the Halloween party type, but … well, perhaps Sasha and Tim took him along. Perhaps one of Martin’s outside-of-work friends took him along. Jon was starting to think that perhaps they’d all gone to a Halloween party together and he’d gone home with a bottle of whiskey. He would have to search the trash when he got home, ransack for clues.

Still, he felt his face grow warm when he looked at Martin again. _Ridiculous,_ Jon told himself. It was a dream. “Hi,” he managed to get out. It sounded weaker and higher than usual, practically echoing against the hall. _You’re ridiculous,_ Jon told himself harshly. _It isn’t as if you have feelings for Martin. You hardly know Martin. He’s your assistant. Any romantic moments you might’ve had with him were all in your head._ _He’s not your prince charming._

And yet. Jon cleared his throat and dipped his head. “Ah, good morning, Martin,” he addressed to the floor.

“Good morning, Jon,” Martin said back pleasantly. Jon noticed how Martin was keeping his distance. God, was the awkward tension between them _real_ or was it all in his head? Had to have been all in his head. There was no way Martin would feel awkward towards him … other than Martin being a naturally awkward sort of man. “Um, so – “

Jon sensed an explanation was coming for his lateness, and he held out a hand. “Tim and Sasha need your help with the statements. The Halloween-based ones are starting to come in.” Probably. It was November 1st at ten-thirty in the morning, after all, but certainly they’d started to roll in earlier.

“Oh. Yeah, I can – I can do that.” Martin started to walk towards the assistants’ office – in doing so, getting closer to Jon. Something hot and terrified raced up Jon’s spine and he practically flung himself in his office doorway. The door itself was pushed open so violently that it dented the filing cabinet opposite. Both men jumped.

_What is the matter with you,_ Jon begged internally. “I’ll check in with you all later, see how you’re, uh, coming along.”

“Thanks.” Martin’s shoulders seemed to relax. “Bet you’re glad that Halloween is over, aren’t you?”

And in that, at least, Jon was confident. “Christ, you’ve got no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of it! One of the silliest fics that I wrote, but a lot of fun - I absolutely love creating monsterfics and this just let me throw a bunch of them in at once, while also exploring the S1 dynamic. I wanted to twist some things around because a lot of the S1 fics I see focus on Tim instead of Sasha, so I turned Tim into a rabbit and pushed Sasha into the limelight a little.
> 
> Thanks all for reading, and as always - good luck with the remaining TMA episodes!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This will be posted all at once, just need a moment to break up chapters. No big CWs for this fic.


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